Help and ideas for busy numbers people
I attended the 2025 Global Excel Summit last week – this time in person for the first time.
It’s become a bit of a tradition that I blog about what I learned, so here goes!
Continue reading “What I learned at the 2025 Global Excel Summit”Here are five tips for using Googlesheets if you normally use Excel.
If you’ve imported it from Excel, it might still be an Excel file that’s being read by Google in compatibility mode. You can tell because name and file type of the workbook will end in XLSX.
This is the worst of both worlds, as you are getting neither Excel nor Google functionality. Save the file as a Google sheet (in the file menu)
I attended the Global Excel Summit 2024 online earlier this month, and in no particular order, here are ten things I learned.
The most inspiring session was given by two people who work for Chanel, who explained how they had used Power Query to reduce thousands of hours of processing time.
In the middle of a day that was focussed on the theoretical uses of AI, it was fantastic to hear about a tried and tested but scandalously underused technology being used to deliver real business change.
More generally their approach to business process improvement sounded fascinating and I’d love to see this become more widely known.
Continue reading “Ten things I learned at the Global Excel Summit 2024”
I recently designed and delivered some Excel training for auditors. Specifically, it was Excel training for audit trainees who had just started at the firm.
I benefitted enormously at the start of my career when my employer arranged for all new audit trainees to have Excel training as part of our induction. Even though it was pretty basic, it established a good grounding in things like formula construction, absolute and relative cell references, and a few shortcuts.
Continue reading “Excel training for auditors”
I don’t offer a standard Intermediate Excel course (or indeed, a standard Beginners course or a standard Advanced course).
There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, I tailor all Excel training that I deliver to the needs of the course participants.
Continue reading “Why I don’t have a standard Intermediate Excel course”I offer bespoke Excel training (and tailored Power Query training), particularly to finance teams. But what do I mean by “bespoke”?
Continue reading “What do I mean by bespoke Excel training?”
Before I was an Excel trainer, even before I was an accountant, I taught English as a foreign language. Even though the subject matter is quite different, I learned some really useful techniques and principles which I apply to Excel training now.
Continue reading “How English language teaching helped me become an Excel trainer”
How much Excel do you need to know as a Finance Director?
After all, you should be beyond the detail by this point, busy strategising and partnering, not spending all day with your face in a spreadsheet. Right?
Continue reading “Excel for Finance Directors”
What do you need to learn to be “good at Excel”? What Excel training should be mandatory for finance teams?
I really rate the ICAEW’s spreadsheet competency framework as a tool to use to diagnose where you and your team are at and where you should be. It breaks down users into four types – Basic, General, Creator and Developer – and allocates the skills that each level should have.
This is much more helpful to me than users saying that they are “intermediate” or “advanced” users. When I recruit for roles I often use the framework in the job description.
Continue reading “How to be a good Excel user”