An introduction to Excel for use in the Accounting, Economic and
Business Academic Environment

August 29, 2011

Stephen Fournier	Phone: 781 736 3898
	e-mail: Fournier@brandeis.edu

Welcome. Today we will look at the basics needed to generate a number of results in Excel using both formulas and functions.

Excel offers a tremendous variety of ways to get at what you need. Today’s work will focus on a few basic topics that will work under any circumstances.

Topics:

· Entering information: numbers versus characters

· Formatting cells

· Absolute versus relative addresses

· Generating formulas using absolute and relative addresses

· Using functions with absolute and relative addresses

There are a number of sources of both built-in and online help. One that is highly recommended is:

http://www.excel-examples.com/index.htm

Solver:

We will use the Coffee Sales Solver dataset to demonstrate what solver can do, along with the on-line help from Microsoft.

Step Functions in Tables:

We will also look at using functions that are based on arrays. This is a very special functional form that needs a bit more attention than do simple functions, but they can save a tremendous amount of effort. Remember, however, that the basics could also be used to do the same thing.