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The Financial Modeler- Conditionnal Format Controls – Part Deux
- Spotting Errors
- How to Model Depreciation
- Improve Table Visualization using OFFSET and Conditional Formatting
- OFFSET Function Tutorial
- Getting More From Your Pivot Tables
- Conditional Formats Control – The Warm-Up
- Improve your model now! #REF Editions
- Back to School – The Excel Model
- R1C1 Enlightenment
Author Archives: Sebastien Labonne
Powerful Sensitivity Tables
In my previous post, I showed you how to do sensitivity analysis with Excel’s data tables. However the functionality allow us to do sensitivity on 2 variables only. Today I’m following up with a way to overcome this limitation.
As an example, an investment might be sensitive to many variables (e.g. lauch dates, set-up costs, marginal [...]
Discovering Sensitivity Tables
Excel has a built-in functionality for sensitivity analysis, hidden under the unclear name of “Data tables” (“tables” in Excel 97-2003).
Two options are available in using these “Data tables”:
Evaluate the impact of one variable on one or more resulting elements (with 2 possible layouts)
Evaluate the impact of two variable on one resulting elements
In my next post, [...]
Posted in Excel Functionality, Model Techniques Tagged Data Tables, Sensitivity, Technique, Tutorial 2 Comments
Seven tips to develop a structured model
Create A Modular Design For Your Model
Don’t put everything on a single worksheet. Separate your model’s components on multiple worksheets, i.e. Revenues, COGS, Other Costs, Financing, Amortization etc…
Keep Your Sheet Names As Short As Possible
It will help keep formulas legible and you’ll see more sheet tabs at once which will help browse within the workbook. [...]
Excel Shortcut of the week – Save Spreadsheet (CTRL-S)
You probably have at one time or another faced an Excel crash, while working on an important project with a tight schedule for example. Autosave is certainly a useful feature and document recovery tool has improved a great deal with time.
However, as always, it’s better to rely on plain-old manual saving. In order to [...]
Using Data Validation – The Trigger Technique
If you don’t know about data validation yet, I suggest you read the following document before getting familiar with this method.
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal01.html
Data validation is certainly one of the best tools to perform what-if analysis, along with sensitivity tables. There many types of sensitivity analysis that can be performed with data validation. These can be used alone [...]
Posted in Excel Functionality, Model Techniques Tagged Data Validation, Sensitivity, Trigger Leave a comment
Excel Shortcut of the week – Cut, Copy and Paste
Learning shortcuts is a great way to increase productivity. Over the years, I found that not only do they allowed me to work faster but they also helped reduce fatigue associated with repetitive tasks, thus reducing errors.
However, learning hundreds of shortcuts may seem like a burden. The best way of proceeding is by learning a [...]
Excel’s GO TO Functionality
In my previous post, I showed you how to improve the clarity of your models by identifying inputs.
However, you might sometimes be having to work on someone else’s model and therefore having no idea of its structure. In such cases, you’ll find that the GO TO functionality can be very helpful.
For example, in the following [...]
Best Practice Fundementals – Inputs
One of the most common mistake in model development is the lack of clear distinction between inputs and calculations. Even worse are inputs hidden within formulas.
Let’s look at the following simple example which computes the present value of two distinct scenarios.
Without looking at each cell, one can only guess what are the inputs. It could [...]
Quick tip: Make your formulas legible