Core Excel Skills Part 1: Functions - Excel skills for finance professionals | CFA Institute
Spreadsheet work underpins modelling, analysis and reporting at most advisory firms, and the episode focuses on the functions behind that work rather than on markets or strategy. It is a training resource for analysts and operations staff rather than a discussion of advisory firm economics.
Summary
By our deskThe first instalment of an eight-part CFA Institute series on Excel skills for finance professionals, presented by chartered accountants and Microsoft MVPs Giles Male and Fay Bordbar. The session walks through core functions used in financial models: logical operators and the AND, OR and NOT functions, converting TRUE/FALSE flags to 1/0, IF versus IFS and the audit difficulty of nested IFs, COUNT, COUNTA and SUM, SUMIFS with multiple criteria, date ranges and wildcards, and XLOOKUP for multi-column and banded lookups. A supporting workbook is offered so viewers can follow along, and later episodes are signposted for email sign-up.
- Covers logical operators and the AND, OR and NOT functions
- Explains converting TRUE/FALSE flags to 1/0 in financial models
- Compares IF with IFS and notes that nested IFs can be hard to audit
- Demonstrates XLOOKUP for multi-column returns and banded lookups, with reasons the presenters give for preferring it to VLOOKUP
Chapters
From the publisher’s description| Time | Chapter | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | 1 min | |
| Welcome to the Excel for finance professionals series | 1 min | |
| From traditional to modern Excel | 1 min | |
| How the training workbooks are structured | 2 min | |
| Logical arguments and operators | 1 min | |
| AND, OR and NOT functions | 2 min | |
| Flags: converting TRUE/FALSE to 1/0 | 1 min | |
| Logical exercises | 1 min | |
| IF and IFS functions | 5 min | |
| COUNT, COUNTA and SUM | 4 min | |
| SUMIFS: criteria, operators and wildcards | 4 min | |
| SUMIFS examples: multiple criteria, date ranges and wildcards | 6 min | |
| XLOOKUP | 4 min | |
| XLOOKUP examples: multiple columns and banded lookups | 5 min | |
| Completing the brief | 1 min | |
| Recap and what's next | 1 min |
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