Excel Guru

It is a common question to ask someone “what are your Excel skills?”  I cringe at this question because it is so subjective and depends on a common reference point.  It is kind of like asking “are you a good driver?”  Compared to Ted Kennedy, yes I have never driven off a bridge, so I must be a good driver.   Similarly absurd but often used is your ability to use the vlookup function as basis for reference of one’s Excel skills.   Why this function was chosen alludes me but nevertheless it has been identified as the minimum baseline to qualify as being competent using Microsoft Excel.  To learn one function by reading the help pages and declare your self excel proficient is a flaw in common business logic.

I like a different approach to ranking one’s Excel skills on my own Likert scale.   A one if you are new and have trouble using the sum function to five if you are able to fully automate our functions in VBA.  On this scale I rank myself a 4.7 as I am still learning the true marvels of VBA and each day continue my journey to becoming a five.   I prepared my first spreadsheets in Appleworks on my Apple IIGS when I was ten and it has been a never ending quest since.   Today my financial models often are a presentation of a large dataset stored in a SQL database (MySQL or MSSQL) or a aggregated calculation of many economic considerations to arrive at a profit and loss projection.

To be truly competent at Excel it is not your ability to use each function in isolation such as the vlookup function but to intelligently augment one function with another to accomplish a task with simplicity.  I personally prefer to use the vlookup function in combination with the match function so my spreadsheets automatically update if columns change.   Being able to build one function together with sometimes many others can make the end result to the user much more simplified and more importantly less prone to error.   Being able to keep your financial model organized and simplified for the ultimate end user’s ease of use is my priority.  This allows the financial model to become a tool to make a business decision rather than an aggregation of data to support the decision.

If you need help building a financial model in Excel please feel free to contact me.