Excel course recommendations - specific please!
December 20, 2021 3:04 AM Subscribe
Hey everyone,
I'm at beginner level with Excel - I'm studying to be an accountant at the moment and I know it's crucial I become better at Excel.
Does anyone know of any specific Excel courses that you would recommend to me that would bring me up to advanced level? I'm happy to pay, so any course - free or paid.
People have recommended Udemy to me, but there are soo many on there, I don't know where to start.
Thanks in advance :)
Yes, check your library, and also check your town's Adult Ed. program. They usually have a good range of Office courses.
posted by theora55 at 6:29 AM on December 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by theora55 at 6:29 AM on December 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Microsoft's own free training videos are good and always up to date. Follow it up with their Excel Associate certification and their Excel Expert certification.
You might also want to look at this free Excel for Accountants course on Udemy, although I can't vouch for it in anyway.
posted by underclocked at 6:30 AM on December 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
You might also want to look at this free Excel for Accountants course on Udemy, although I can't vouch for it in anyway.
posted by underclocked at 6:30 AM on December 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
I would suggest books by John Walkenbach. There's one on formulas, one on VBA, and I would guess one on the basics - all about 300 pages each. The nice thing about a book on Excel is that you can just look at the part about your current problem without having to survive an entire course.
posted by Grok Lobster at 7:27 AM on December 20, 2021
posted by Grok Lobster at 7:27 AM on December 20, 2021
I didn't realize that Lynda has changed its name to LinkedIn Learning. Her courses are excellent and free through the library.
posted by Ferrari328 at 7:46 AM on December 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Ferrari328 at 7:46 AM on December 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are so so so SO many ways to be "advanced" in Excel that it's pretty normal for two advanced users to barely overlap in skills, so really you can throw a dart at anything and still be a better Excel user afterwards.
My recommendation (I work in accounting software, with accounting teams, with accounting data that is often a wreck and has to be cleaned up before being put in new accounting software, plus reports) would be to start with the previously-recommended Microsoft training curriculum. After that, you may want to do some more study specifically in formulas and then Power Query. I would actually point you to Leila Gharani's free content on youtube for those first before getting into paid training.
But also the thing about Excel is that you tend to learn a lot of what you need a la minute, so don't ever expect to complete training fully-armed for the next weird thing you have to figure out how to do. Knowing what resources to turn to (or which ones explain things to you in a way your brain likes) is as important as already knowing the skill. But there's always going to be a) formulas b) data cleanup tasks c) re-swizzling the presentation of data to suit someone's requirements, so those are your big base skillsets.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:20 AM on December 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
My recommendation (I work in accounting software, with accounting teams, with accounting data that is often a wreck and has to be cleaned up before being put in new accounting software, plus reports) would be to start with the previously-recommended Microsoft training curriculum. After that, you may want to do some more study specifically in formulas and then Power Query. I would actually point you to Leila Gharani's free content on youtube for those first before getting into paid training.
But also the thing about Excel is that you tend to learn a lot of what you need a la minute, so don't ever expect to complete training fully-armed for the next weird thing you have to figure out how to do. Knowing what resources to turn to (or which ones explain things to you in a way your brain likes) is as important as already knowing the skill. But there's always going to be a) formulas b) data cleanup tasks c) re-swizzling the presentation of data to suit someone's requirements, so those are your big base skillsets.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:20 AM on December 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
I came back to emphasize Lyn Never's comment about presentation. It's important to know your audience.
You made a presentation so the details are in your head and you forget that that your audience doesn't know all that.
The devil is in the details - make sure you have a title and a legend and titles for the axes of a graph.
posted by Grok Lobster at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
You made a presentation so the details are in your head and you forget that that your audience doesn't know all that.
The devil is in the details - make sure you have a title and a legend and titles for the axes of a graph.
posted by Grok Lobster at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would recommend that you avoid any course you have to pay for for this purpose. Two reasons -
1) I’m an accountant and most of my personal Excel use relies on very few functionalities (more on that below). This also covers most of the information we receive from our clients. If you do need something more to do a specific task you can learn how to do that as required.
2) in the workplace any kind of process should be kept as simple as possible so that other people can help/take over if your role changes. It is not a good thing if you are the only person who understands the very complex spreadsheet needed to generate the weekly widget report. It is not a good thing if somebody gives me a file and I have to google the formulas they are using to review the file. I have been known to return files like that to the preparer asking them to do it as simple as possible because if I don’t understand it nobody else will either…
As to the simple things - we introduce our new trainees to the below in a half day practice session. I say introduce because they will require the real life application to become good. The idea is to make them aware that Excel can do these things. We also tell them that Excel can do much more and that google is the answer to all excel questions they may have. You can absolutely learn all of this with free resources as mentioned by others. If you have no data to practice make up some based on the data headings used in the free resources.
Things we introduce:
Formatting data/files:
Text to column
Replace
Sort
Filters
Data formats Excel has predefined
Conditional formatting
View related things like:
grouping, freezing panes, split views that help when working with large data sets
Formulas:
How maths works in Excel
Sum/count/average
Sum if and count-if
V lookups
Pivots
How to combine one or more of these
That there are many more formulas and that you google how to do the thing before asking your team for help
Formula tracing to understand formulas somebody else has created or find errors in your formulas
The importance of checking data integrity by:
reconciling things
embedding formulas to check things
Checking for hidden data
Checking for links to other files that can cause errors if the other file is no longer available
Visualisations because nobody wants to see the detailed workings/analysis in a report or on a slide:
What makes a good summary table/overview
How to use the chart functionality and what a good chart should do
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
1) I’m an accountant and most of my personal Excel use relies on very few functionalities (more on that below). This also covers most of the information we receive from our clients. If you do need something more to do a specific task you can learn how to do that as required.
2) in the workplace any kind of process should be kept as simple as possible so that other people can help/take over if your role changes. It is not a good thing if you are the only person who understands the very complex spreadsheet needed to generate the weekly widget report. It is not a good thing if somebody gives me a file and I have to google the formulas they are using to review the file. I have been known to return files like that to the preparer asking them to do it as simple as possible because if I don’t understand it nobody else will either…
As to the simple things - we introduce our new trainees to the below in a half day practice session. I say introduce because they will require the real life application to become good. The idea is to make them aware that Excel can do these things. We also tell them that Excel can do much more and that google is the answer to all excel questions they may have. You can absolutely learn all of this with free resources as mentioned by others. If you have no data to practice make up some based on the data headings used in the free resources.
Things we introduce:
Formatting data/files:
Text to column
Replace
Sort
Filters
Data formats Excel has predefined
Conditional formatting
View related things like:
grouping, freezing panes, split views that help when working with large data sets
Formulas:
How maths works in Excel
Sum/count/average
Sum if and count-if
V lookups
Pivots
How to combine one or more of these
That there are many more formulas and that you google how to do the thing before asking your team for help
Formula tracing to understand formulas somebody else has created or find errors in your formulas
The importance of checking data integrity by:
reconciling things
embedding formulas to check things
Checking for hidden data
Checking for links to other files that can cause errors if the other file is no longer available
Visualisations because nobody wants to see the detailed workings/analysis in a report or on a slide:
What makes a good summary table/overview
How to use the chart functionality and what a good chart should do
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:55 AM on December 20, 2021 [1 favorite]