Dear readers,

    The computer is one of the most powerful machines we have at hand. Its value is derived from its digital platform, upon which thousands of millions of applications are built to simplify tasks and improve efficiency. Excel is definitely one of the most important pieces of software for analysis in the business world. Excel is a spreadsheet application where you can enter, study and manipulate data. Here are a few ways to use Excel.

    The most basic use of Excel is for mathematical calculations. One can use the spreadsheets as a calculator to solve for a sum, product, etc. Each box in Excel belongs to a row and a column and is labeled with a letter and a number. These are called “cells.”

    If you have lots of data, you can also use Excel to summarize data and create visuals. For example, if you highlight a section of data, you can immediately see the mean. You can also select data to create different sorts of graphs, including scatterplots, histograms, and pie charts. More advanced tools in Excel include pivot tables.

    Excel has many built-in formulas. Select a blank cell and start typing the equal sign and the first letter of the function to see the formulas. These functions can help you identify cells that fit your desired criteria and perform analysis on those data. For example, the “Sumif” formula lets you choose a range of cells and sum up the numbers that fit your criteria (say you want the sum if the number is greater than five). Some functions are self-explanatory by name, while others are much harder to understand. There are many resources and online communities that can help you with Excel functions and other tools.

    Finally, there are macros that can record a series of commands you perform and then repeat the commands in one step for you. If you often want to highlight cells in red and bold every other column for each spreadsheet, you can create a macro, or shortcut, which will remember these commands and execute them for you in the future.

    These are just a few of the uses of Excel. Due to its functionality and strong network effects, Excel is one of the most popular and widely used applications for analysis. Of course, Excel isn’t the only useful software for analysis, but knowing how it works will give you a big advantage.

    Sincerely,

    Bingyin

     Li Bingyin is studying finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University.