Building Resilient Budget Spreadsheets

Excel Accountant:In this informative webcast, Excel expert David H. Ringstrom, CPA, shows you how to create effective and resilient spreadsheets and how to future-proof them as well. David explains design techniques, including separating inputs from calculations, building out a separate calculations spreadsheet, and creating an operating and a cash flow budget. Although not included in the discussion, a cash flow budget calculates when to borrow against a line of credit, pay down the line of credit, and also when cash is available to pay dividends is provided in the handouts.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Office 365 version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2019, 2016, 2013, and earlier) during the presentation as well as in his detailed handouts. David also provides an Excel workbook that includes most of the examples he uses during the webcast.

Office 365 is a subscription-based product that provides new-feature updates as often as monthly. Conversely, the perpetual licensed versions of Excel have feature sets that don’t change. Perpetual licensed versions have year numbers, such as Excel 2019, Excel 2016, and so on.

Who should attend: Practitioners seeking to build budget spreadsheets that can be easily updated and supporting calculations are easy to follow.

Topics covered:

• Utilizing Excel's Name Manager feature to review and manage named ranges within a workbook.
• Using range names to streamline formulas and bookmark key inputs within a workbook.
• Crafting formulas to compute gross margins, projected sales, commissions, and related amounts.
• Improving the integrity of spreadsheets with Excel’s VLOOKUP function.
• Using range names to streamline formulas and bookmark key inputs within a workbook.
• Building operating budgets quickly based on detailed supporting schedules that provide an audit trail.
• Saving time by using the AutoSum formula to sum multiple columns at once with a mouse click or a keyboard shortcut.
• Learning how the Table feature empowers you to improve the integrity of Excel spreadsheets.
• Using range names to streamline formulas and bookmark key inputs within a workbook.
• Saving time writing formulas by choosing named ranges with the Use In Formula command.
• Building operating budgets quickly based on detailed supporting schedules that provide an audit trail.