Microsoft Excel has grown to become one of the essential computer programs around the globe since it was released in 1985. Any field can benefit from Excel skills, including business. Here are 50 Excel important skills for business.
Dealing with numbers
1. Calculation
Accuracy is vital while computing excel formulas. The wrong data and the wrong formula can lead to a spoilt and unreliable document. Most businesses use excel sheets to compute revenues, taxes, expenses, budgets, and allocation of funds. Any business operator has to be accurate while working with excel sheets, formulas, and data to avoid giving wrong projections. Building yourself a customized calculator to program all your commonly used formulas can help.
2. Creating charts
A business will require to use excel to create a visual representation of data and project findings through the use of charts. You can use pie charts, bar charts, line charts, and scatter graphs to summarize your data. Excel charts have unique features such as dynamic visuals, filled maps, and interactive form controls to interpret data for users to understand easily. Next time you have a presentation to make and large data, create that chart to easily do the job.
3. Accounting
Excel has many important formulas and functions used for accounting purposes. Working with spreadsheets also allows for an individual to develop customized formulas that can fit their accounting needs. There are a lot of accounting needs that excel caters to, from budget plans, financial reports, forecasts, expense tracking, loan amortization schedules, and more. Furthermore, you do not have to work from scratch creating your templates, as excel has numerous templates that make accounting processes easy.
4. Inventory tracking
Excel spreadsheets are a low-cost inventory management solution. Understanding Inventory tracking is a crucial excel skill as it helps manage inventory data such as sales, suppliers, stock, orders, and purchases. It plays a crucial role in reducing errors and increasing the efficiency of inventory tracking. With the use of excel, we can be able to filter search results, create groups sheets of inventory, and get updated on the changes of inventory.
5. Create graphs
Graphs are useful in the presentation of visual images of data and trends usually derived from two variable physical parameters that have a relationship. Excel is a powerful tool for manipulating and creating graphical visualization of data that will help a user identify anomalies, changes, trends, and patterns.
Completing tasks
6. Checklists
Checklists are important to help in prioritizing tasks, tracking progress, and improve productivity. Excel helps create a more collaborative and interactive checklist. You get to use dynamic checkboxes, which helps in making quick analyses of the completion of assigned tasks in a systematic manner. The checklist helps track specific tasks that are to be accomplished within a certain period with specific resources.
7. Tasklist
A task list is crucial in assigning priority and tracking tasks in order of importance and urgency on a day-to-day basis. Excel offers task list templates that are integrated with reporting tools such as charts, graphs, and matrices. The tasklist is important in increasing productivity and achieving set goals.
8. Track time with time logs
Time management is crucial when undertaking any task or project to capitalize on productivity. Excel proves to be useful in creating time tracking tools which helps in controlling schedules and setting deadlines for accomplishing tasks. Time tracking templates are available and have predesigned formulas, and also allow for customization to fit your needs. Time logs are important to provide data on how time is utilized and helps in analyzing and generating reports that are used to create awareness and improving performance.
9. Project management tasks
Keeping track of project team activities and the progress they make can be challenging. It may become an issue when working with huge projects that involve a lot of stakeholders. With a project plan, it is easier to manage all the tasks that a project team has to carry out. Excel can help a project team visualize, plan and track their project progress. You can use an excel project tracker or an excel project management dashboard.
10. Schedule work to team members
Want to have a perfect work schedule? Don't worry, and excel has got you. A good work schedule is something many managers strive for in an organization. Unfortunately, very few people achieve it hence creating confusion when it comes to segregation of duties and time limits. Excel worksheets provide a solution for this problem as you can build shifts around your employees and plan for activities. You can easily get weekly, daily, and even monthly templates to help you create the perfect teamwork schedule.
11. Reduce strain on IT departments
Having a team of employees that have excellent skills helps reduce the strain that may be otherwise redirected to the IT department. Finance, accounting, marketing, sales, legal, and procurement departments all require people to have excellent skills. Having such skills would enable them to perform their duties well by accessing all the tools and templates that excel has to offer. In turn, this will reduce the over-reliance of the IT department that may come as a result of using or upgrading applications needed by the various departments.
12 Enhance higher accuracy
Excel uses mathematical formulas and embedded colors to generate accurate data. Formulas are effective in creating a working solution with perfect accuracy by building analysis and organizing data. The use of the "SUMIF" formula improves the accuracy of spreadsheets. Excels allow one to set precision on the worksheet enabling high accuracy.
Planning
13. Creating calendars and schedules
Excel is a great tool for creating custom calendars whereby you can create a monthly or yearly calendar and include important events, activities, and meetings and use different formatting styles to your calendar. Excel is important in coordinating program and project schedules, keeping track of important work, and making future work schedule plans. Excel has inbuilt templates which make it easier to create an integrated calendar and format data.
14. Planning goals on a worksheet
Excel worksheets are crucial in any business setting when it comes to planning goals. You can create professional goals, financial goals, and even fitness and team working goals. These goals help you keep focused and on track while conducting business.
Despite this, it can be pretty hard to keep track of your goals or even achieving them. With these excel skills, you can create various worksheets that would help you monitor your progress.
15. Mockups
Mockups are used to create detailed design drafts and prototypes from ideas to be used to come up with the final concrete design. Mockup templates can be simple or interactive prototype designs with functionality.
16. Seating charts
Anyone knows that arranging a seating chart, especially for big events, can be a headache. In a business setting, being capable of creating a seating chart in excel can be very helpful. Any advanced or well-informed excel user can be able to create a seating chart using RSVPs spreadsheets. Apart from this, you can easily make seating charts when you access the right tabs in excel.
17. Human resource planning
There are many workforce plan smart sheets in excel to be used when creating a human resource plan. People are considered the most valuable asset within any company. Having a workforce planner helps in keeping track of employees' work activity, determine the right fit for employees and still fulfill business demands.
18. Plan events
Have an event come up? Make sure you have everything covered by creating a reliable itinerary before sending out those invites. Excel offers an event planner template you can use to make sure you get all the details correct and create an organized plan.
19. Manage time and schedule
Having a time management schedule helps you keep track of time. Timekeeping and observance is a great asset in the overall productivity of any person. With an excel worksheet, you can keep track of hours worked, employees' schedules, time in and time out. Excel offers different templates that you can use in managing time and your schedule.
Keep in touch with others.
20. Mailing list
Making a mailing list in excel is essential to any business. Such a skill is needed when dealing with scrambled information in a spreadsheet. Perhaps you may have a list of people whose first, second, and third names are in different columns. Or maybe you may have a set of addresses where the street, city, and postal codes are in different adjacent columns. With such information, you may be required to generate a mailing list. It is important to understand and be confident enough to extract such information, combine it, and form a mailing list. From here, you may just be able to send an invite list for that annual company party!
21. CRM
Creating your customized Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System will enable you to stay on top when it comes to customer needs. In case you encounter problems making your home, you can easily get free sales to excel templates to make your work easier. The secret is in understanding how to work around the template.
Collecting and keep information
22. Quizzes
Want to collect and keep information in excel? Try quizzes. In an open spreadsheet, you can easily create questions in one sheet and answers in another sheet. You can instruct Excel to quiz you by using these questions to gather data from yourself or somebody else. By using the formulas =IF, =COUNT, -COUNTIF, you can easily generate your quizzes.
23. Forms
Excel is a great option for creating forms. Having the skills to create simple and complicated forms in a spreadsheet is saleable and looked after excel skill in business. Apart from this, you can even add content controls such as drop-down menus in your excel forms. These menus enable users to select their preferred choice from a pre-set list box.
24. Store customer data
The easiest way to keep track, organize, search and edit your customer data is by creating a database. Creating a database for your customers where you can store data is another crucial excel skill. For anyone who knows about creating a simple table, storing complicated customer data in excel will not be difficult.
25. Bring data in one place
In business settings, it is common to come across data in different spreadsheets. Navigating through all the different spreadsheets, columns, rows, or workbooks may be tiresome and time-consuming. For any corporate or business employee, knowing to combine data in one place may come in handy. Apart from copy and pasting such data, knowing how to create a link in excel and using the data tab to consolidate your information is also important.
26. Data entry;
Data Entry is important in creating a worksheet. Data entered in a range of cells is easy to display and calculate. Excel has features such as a data form that allows you to input data and view data. It also allows businesses to customize their results to tailor their specific needs. For instance, creating work shift lists for employees' and consumers' mailing lists.
27. Collect and verify business data;
Businesses use different systems such as CRM for their databases and logs. They export results to excel, which is easy to use or integrate with others systems. In addition, it has features such as filtering and sorting. They allow businesses to verify and validate their data. It also allows the business to clean up data that is incorrect or outdated. Incomplete or duplicate data is also detected and rectified.
28. Keep and access records:
You can store large amounts of data using Excel spreadsheets. This is through many worksheets that form into a range of cells. Excel stores data used for reference in the future. Accessing these records is also easy with Excel.
Tracking
29. Tracking product sales;
Excel allows businesses to track their product sales. Businesses can track their product design sales in the market. This gives them an idea about the business progress over the years and within a specific period. They are also able to track sales trends identifying both high and low trends in sales.
30. Track return On investments
Businesses can track the return on investments using Microsoft Excel. The return on investment helps the business know the number of investments made over some time. This gives it a clear sign of the profits. Besides, tracking sales makes it easy for the business to project future profit levels. The business can also estimate when they will break even. Return on investments helps the business decide on which activity the business can invest heavily in.
31. Tracking budget;
Excel has templates that allow for accounting and budgeting features. The built-in formula and calculating features help with figures. Businesses can organize their results as well as track their figures. The business can budget for its operations and project future figures. The business can use the previous figures to estimate its growth.
32. Stock tracking
Stock management and tracking are very easy in Excel. Inputting data in spreadsheets allows data to flows easily. This is important during Stock Check-in and check-out, making it easy to manage the business. The business knows when knowing when their stock is almost finished and when stock delivery is done. It is also easy to see which products in the stock sell out fast and available goods.
33. Track expenses
Tracking expenses is very important for businesses. Businesses can create a ledger spreadsheet for tracking their expenses. The ledger spreadsheet summarises expenses and compares them over time. With this, the business is aware of its expenses. The business also differentiates expenses among different departments. Excel helps also track changes in the expenses over months. The businesses are also able to compare expenses in different categories.
34. Keep track of supplier
Businesses that do stock management easily keep track of suppliers. Stock management ensures businesses track inventory. That means the inventory delivery date is tracked to the next period it is restocked. The business has updated information about the supplier and can arrange for the next stock delivery.
35. Suppliers contact and clients transactions;
Businesses sometimes involve complicated logistics, and it is difficult to do them manually. Excel spreadsheets, however, are easy to use and fill in data on clients and suppliers. Tracking client's and suppliers' transactions are key in managing inventory. For the business to run smoothly, it is important to record the client's and suppliers' transactions. This means keeping a record of important dates and time schedules for both clients and suppliers.
Market department
36. Summarise sales or customer figures
Sales and Customer figures are made through pivot tables and graphs in Excel. The pivot tables are important in highlighting different group sales and customer figures. They summarize the reports and are critical in decision-making. Using excel to summarize sales or customer figures helps businesses manage their sales force. Businesses can project their future business growth and investment plans with the earlier information.
37. Aid in decision-making
Excel stores data. This data can predict future business maneuvers. This is important to the business when making critical decisions. The data forecasts future sales as well as formulate marketing strategies. Excel spreadsheets also check the business performance and of the employees. This is important in decisions about hiring and firing employees.
38. Plan future business using earlier information
Businesses record data for sales, customers, investments as well as profits. This information is important for the well-being of a business. Previous information on customers may detect and find new customers. Recording such data using Excel not only helps the business plan for the future but is also critical in planning future marketing strategies.
39. Improves business efficiency
Businesses whose staff have undergone Excel training can easily solve issues. They are also swift in moving team projects along due to their increased level of expertise. Understanding Excel helps businesses handle tasks with enhanced attention to detail. They also record data with a high accuracy that helps the business to grow and run efficiently.
40. Business analysis and Forecast future figures;
A key important aspect in businesses is reporting the results and reviewing them. However, Projecting future scenarios and changes in business is also critical. This ensures the business prepares to conquer the challenges. Forecasting future financial projections is easy using past data recorded in Excel. It is also easy to calculate future values by creating a formula with chart data.
41. Create sales trade reports
Pivot charts and graphs are easy to create sales trade reports. They are important for data visualization and product differentiation. It is also easy to find products that are not making good sales and formulate proper marketing strategies. Generating Sales trade reports for businesses is essential for their day-to-day running. The trade reports can be generated in various forms. They can be in graphs, plain text, or charts.
42. Generate graphs to show sales and targets
Excel has features such as pivot tables that create graphics and charts. The graphs and charts visualize data and help in data analysis. The graphs show a different perspective on business trends and performance. Excel has a variety of ready-made templates that support graphs. This means businesses can fine-tune their details using colors, text comments, and axis values. Businesses use data visualization in ad campaigns as well as in marketing products.
43. Monitor performance and Reporting;
Excel has features that allow businesses to check and report performance. This is mainly by inserting a pivot table. Businesses can easily extract information from the datasets quickly. Pivot table features allow for counting and summing within the datasets.
Office administration
44. Invoicing and paying bills;
Excel also supports office administration that is key to day-to-day activities. This includes paying bills, Contacting clients and suppliers, and invoicing. Excel is all-purpose in tracking and managing office administrative activities.
45. Performance reporting;
Performance reporting is important in outlining business processes. Excel has features such as flow charts, texts, and graphics. These features are handy in reporting the business performance. They are effective in Organizing scenarios and rules which optimize the business processes. Excel features such as formulas help track financial performance. Graphs and pivot tables help track sales and stock. This, in general, helps the business in determining its overall performance.
Strategic analysis
46. Guide investments;
Strategic analysis in Excel is important in business. The analysis is closely connected to formulas and data on spreadsheets. Excel guides businesses in the actions of investments and allocating of assets. Businesses can predict future investment trends. With that, they formulate strategies that cushion them in case of foreseen difficulties.
47. Allocate assets and manage operations
In managing the day-to-day operations of a business, Excel is important. Using excel to manage inventory helps the business run smoothly. This avoids incidences such as overstocking particular items. It also means that excel can report on employees. This way, the business can manage its labor effectively.
Contract administration
48. Record contract details;
Excel is easy to use in recording details. This makes it easy for businesses to record contract details such as payments, dates, milestones, and deliverables. Excel provides a variety of templates customized to a specific contract type or a particular stage of the contract.
People and operations management
49. Organize information about people;
Excel is powerful in organizing data. The information may be about employees, supporters, consumers, or attendees of a training. The information is categorized in various rows or columns using colors to create visuals and emphasis on specific information about people.
50. Store and retrieve personal information;
Excel is effective for storing personal information that can later be retrieved. Spreadsheets can take information for an individual such as name, subscription status, email, employee start date, and their last contact.