If you have ever used a ledger or a cash book, you will find this program very easy to understand or use if you relate to the manual ledger. This product is mainly used by financial people for business orientated usage. With the introduction of personal computers to the general public, more people are now finding the potential benefits of using this product. The structure of the product is totally different to a word processor or any publishing programs, even though the presentation of the open window looks simular to other programs, it is not.
As you can see from the image below, the major difference is the layout of the work area.
Where there are normally ruler bars, in their place are vertical and horizontal alphanumeric address lines.
Ok, what benefit is this product? Most people now do require some form of budget to maintain their financial affairs. This product can automate this procedure, once set up. The first thing on the worksheet area is a grid pattern of rectangular cells. These cells are the major component for manipulating the data held within them, being either numeric, logical or any data required. Entering data into these cells, the same as you would a ledger, is the basic idea of the product.
The following image displays a “simple accounts keeper” which shows the general usage for the cells and possible layout. This layout can be as simple as this, or as complex as some price lists displayed on some web pages.
The biggest benefit this product has over a paper ledger is that you can automate calculations between the cells or within the cells.
Simple mathematics, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can be performed between the cells.
Take for instance in the following image. The income has been shown in the column “B” row 7 through 9 with the total in “B11”.
To achieve this, the product has added the contents of the cells B7+B8+B9+B10 and stored the result in B11.
The image below shows the formula the computer uses to achieve the same result. As you can see, the cell title is B11, in the formula bar (fx) with the formula is display as =SUM(B7:B10).
What you would do manually in a ledger or cash book, can be
achieve here, and the procedure can be automated once the formula has been
entered into the relevant cells.
As the cells are filled with data, the total cells are automatically updated. This can be a simple calculation or can be as complex as you need. This forms the basic usage of this product; all other functions are a method of dressing up and manipulating the data within the cells.
Not only does this product provide an easy way to manipulate data it can display the data in a graphical format in the form of a chart.
This is just one of many types of charts that can be displayed. As a result of this, data charts can be imported into a word processor to form part of a presentation or report.
To use this product; from the start select All Programs then Excel. When the program is loaded you will see a screen as shown in the beginning of this discussion.
As you move the mouse cursor over the cells the cursor will change to a cross. Simply select a desired cell and then enter your data or formula, when complete press e or use the t key to move to the next cell.
Let’s recreate the ‘Simple Accounts Keeper’.
Let us assume the program is up and running and on the screen you are at
position A1 on the worksheet.
Firstly enter the label “Simple Accounts Keeper” at A1, then press e.
You will notice the highlighted cell is now A2, press again to move down one line or to the next cell A3.
Press the t key to move across to the B3 cell and enter the word Income, press t then enter the word Expenses.
At this point the sheet will start to resemble what we are after.
Move down to row 5 column 1, enter the date, DSS etc, to complete the row then move down to A7 and complete that row.
Continue till you complete filling in the data. Move back to A1 and select the cell. Even though the text is stored in A1 it seems to flow into B1. To enable this to be displayed as show previously, highlight the cells A1 to E1.
Select Format from the Tool Bar, then Cell, a window will open with options as show on the right. Select the tab labelled ‘Alignment’ and select ‘Merge cells’, in the Text control option.
Select OK and the screen will be updated, with the title
across the merged cells. You will
also notice in the previous image there is an option to centre the text within
the merged cells. This format
option is for individual cells or a group of selected cells.
Next is to centre the headers ‘Income & Expenses’. This can be achieved by selecting the desired cell and selecting centre text from the Formula Toolbar.
Next is to insert the formula into the row 11 for the Totals. Select B11 then select ‘AutoSum’ from the Standard Toolbar. This will display a simular screen, as in the left image, pressing enter will complete the action. Repeat this for the remaining cells in row 11.
As you enter data into the cells B7 to E10, the row 11 will automatically fill the totals for the columns B to E. Calculations can be as small as several cells or many hundred cells. The procedure is the same for both.
Complex calculations can also be achieved for percentages
divisions; full details are available through the help files.
The image on the left displays the variety of functions that can be used to manipulate the data in cells.
Again the Help file serves as a work book for the product.
To use Help press the ! key or select Help on the menu bar.
This will display the screen on the left and simply select the item of interest on the left of the screen.
The right column shows topics that are relevant to the topic selected.
Click on an item of interest and a display window will open with detailed information on the use of the item selected.
Third party publications are available on Excel from basic usage to experts, who, from experience have experimented with different functions, they included detailed instruction on their achievements and procedures on ways of using these functions to manipulate the data.
