Microsoft Excel Training: Why You Need It

These days, it would be near-impossible to survive working as a manager without knowing how to work with Microsoft Excel. It’s proven itself useful with collating your data, keeping track of tasks, building helpful charts, helping identify trends, and many others. But despite its all-around usefulness, most of us can probably settle with teaching ourselves how to work with Excel. After all, the vast amount of available resources on the Internet make it easy to find a quick fix to any solutions you might encounter

However, there are still some things you should consider before you swear off going to a crash course on using Excel. To start, the question you should ask yourself is what you intend to use it for. If you’re just going to use it to keep track of your daily workload, compute your company’s payroll, and other routine tasks, you can probably survive on a self-teaching approach. But there might come a time when you’ll be required to do something more complex with Excel. This is the time when you should remember not to overlook this humble spreadsheet app and recognize its potential.

Excel Has More Advanced Functions for Power Users

Don’t underestimate Excel as just a glorified table organization program. It’s a powerful application that even uses its own programming language. This gives you a wide range of functions to do helpful tasks you never knew you needed. Just some of important ones you should learn include formulas for VLOOKUP, CONCATENATE, IF statements, and more.

Additionally, making use of add-ins like PowerPivot gives Excel users a convenient way to collate information from different sources to make reporting easier. Though using both Excel formulas and add-ins can be self-taught, some complex functions that use one or more of them together can get confusing. These are possible situations that would make you want to consider learning under an expert.

Excel Mistakes Can Threaten Careers

Finding out how to do complicated tasks isn’t the only reason you should undergo specialized Excel training. Surprisingly, innocent-looking spreadsheet errors can have unpredictably huge effects that could threaten your future with your employer. One notable instance was an error made by Harvard-based economists that cost the UK’s taxpayers millions of pounds through economic mismanagement.

Admittedly, mistakes this bad surely don’t happen every day. However, even small issues can have sizable repercussions for smaller companies. If the stakes are high for you and your employer or business, it might be safer to learn how to use Excel properly.

There Always Something New to Learn

But even if you’ve had previous experience with the program, formal Excel courses still provide beginners and some longtime users with expert-level advice. Another thing to consider is that even learning a faster way of doing something you already knew can prove to be helpful with streamlining your processes. Some examples of this include a shortcut key, a more simplified formula, or even a better add-in. These small things build up, lightening your overall workload through improved efficiency.

You can probably still discover new Excel tips by just surfing the internet. But having an expert to consult with allows for faster, more specific, and more helpful feedback. If you’re looking for a quick way to know your way around Excel, then undergoing some formal training might be the best way.

Microsoft Excel is a very powerful and highly versatile data management application with many useful functions. And because it’s so commonly used, it’s quite possible to rely on online documentation to teach yourself the ins and outs. However, attending some courses with some proven experts can shorten the adjustment period and help you hit the ground running. What’s important is that once you’ve mastered Microsoft Excel, you’ll find yourself working out the kinks in your spreadsheet in a matter of minutes, instead of hours. This frees up your schedule, allowing you to either concentrate on other areas of your work or get some needed rest to avoid burning out.