I don’t post to this blog anywhere near as much as I want to but I have made a new year resolution this year is to post here at least once a week.

Happy new year to you all anyway and take the time to be EXCELlent!!

Duncan

I have put together a video that walks you through the functions and formulae part of this work book … with previews of the rest.

You can watch the video from here BUT PLEASE NOTICE if your broadband speed is slow, you might have to download the file before watching it. Otherwise, it is excellent quality!

http://www.excelmaster.co.uk//support_files/video_files/debtor_age/debtors_ageing_schedule.mp4

If you want the excel file, download that from here: http://www.excelmaster.co.uk//support_files/video_files/debtor_age/ageing_sched.xlsx

Please note, I used Excel for the mac 2011 in this video … don’t worry as you can open it in Excel for Windows as normal.
Please let me have your feedback, to info@excelmaster.co.uk as mentioned at the end of the video.

Duncan Williamson

Once I had started I decided I could prepare a variety of solutions:

• using functions and formulae
• using conditional formatting
• using a Pivot Table
• using Excel Tables

Here are some screenshots that help to illustrate what I have done and after the screenshots, I show you some of the formulae I used in the development of this file.

In any case, this workbook does two things:

it allows pupils to consider a real ageing schedule albeit with a simplified example and to change the payment boundaries: for example, invoices owing between 1 and 30 days then 31 and 60 days … you can change it to 1 – 25 days then 26 – 50 days … and any range of days you like. This will help you to explore the credit control strategy and so on. It leads in to cash forecasting and budgeting too.

To determine whether we are dealing with an entry between 1 and 30 days, 31 and 60 days … =IF(AND(TODAY()-$B14>K$14,TODAY()-$B14<=L$14),$D14,”") … this gives the answer in values

to show the same results but in terms of days …

=IF(AND(TODAY()-$B14>K$14,TODAY()-$B14<=L$14),TODAY()-$B14,”")

Showing the status of a debtor’s balance: overdue or current …

=IF(TODAY()>C14,”Overdue”,”Current”)

Similarly, finding Overdue and Current allowing for the payment of an account …

=IF(D14>0,”",IF(TODAY()>C14,”Overdue”,”Current”))

Then there are the functionalities of Conditional Formatting and Excel Tables

The Pivot table, which I don’t show in screenshot form above even includes the suppression of zeroes.

An apparently simple problem but with some interesting programming to do.

Duncan Williamson

I read the papers and looked at one or two videos from the Financial Times and other places. The FT pointed me at www.ft.com/autumnstatement and that contains links to some excellent materials. What I wanted to do was to find some data and see what I could make of it in Excel.

The data came in PDF files and there is a LOT of it. What follows, then, relates to just one table from one file. Firstly the data and then some things that I did to it using Excel:

PastedGraphic-1.pdf

I used Excel for mac: 2011 for this analysis: for this reason you can see the sparklines. Sparklines, remember, are one cell charts or graphs that can be presented as line sparklines, column sparklines or win/loss sparklines. I used column sparklines above and highlighted negative values.

One of the things I was really looking for was the hockey stick effect of economic and financial forecasting: I found it! I think you will understand what the hockey stick effect means when you see the very first of the 11 charts I prepared from the above table:

PastedGraphic-2.pdf

Get it? The hockey stick effect I mean.

How about this one?

PastedGraphic-3.pdf

Got it yet? The hockey stick effect I mean.

OK, take a look at this:

PastedGraphic-4.pdf

I think you’ve got it now: the hockey stick effect is that when we are creating a forecast, we often say that the immediate future will be worse than today but after a while things are bound to look up and then things will get better and better.

Eight out of the eleven charts I produced from the UK Economy demonstrate the hockey stick effect: plot them all to see what the other three look like!

In addition to charts I programmed a correlation matrix, to take a look at the inter relationships that the UK Government has built into its forecasts. Take a look:

PastedGraphic-6.pdf

I hope you can read that table: I have used ordinary manual formatting for that and for the matrix itself I have used conditional formatting: greater than, lower than, between.

In terms of correlations, changes in inventories seems to relate to nothing … why would that be?
Domestic Demand correlates very well with most things … should this be the case?
Exports of Goods and Services is right in the middle in that it correlates only marginally with most of the other variables … is this a surprise?

Since I am using Excel for mac 2011 you need to know that it does not have the Data Analysis ToolPak Add-In available to it so I had to programme the correlation matrix cell by cell like this:

=CORREL($B$13:$H$13,$B14:$H14)

In terms of the world economy, here is a chart based on the first part of the table of data shown at the start of this post:

PastedGraphic-7.pdf

There is not that much evidence of the hockey stick effect here: well, not that we can see. Take a closer look at the sparklines and see what you can see. I am not saying the hockey stick effect is there but it’s a good idea to take a look at each variable alone rather than just relying on my composite chart!

There you are! I hope you find this whistle stop review of just one or two aspects of the data tables and so on that the UK Government has used to base its economy policies on … and for the sale of hockey sticks maybe!

The source of data on which this post has been based is: http://media.ft.com/cms/b6e1e1ec-1a91-11e1-ae4e-00144feabdc0.pdf

Duncan Williamson

However, now the page is complete and it’s a winner: it shows you a number of features that I know even advanced users of Excel do not know.

In that page you will learn about 

• basic formatting
• dates and times
• adding times
• changing font colours
• words AND numbers in cells at the same time
• zero suppression

Take a look: you won’t be disappointed!

Duncan Williamson

It would be silly not to take a look!

Duncan Williamson

I accepted the brief and the file.

My initial reaction was that a Pivot Table would allow me to analyse the 500 rows and 20 columns of information and I did a presentation on my findings. BUT, before I could get to the data and create the Pivot Tables I had to unmerge hundreds of cells: column headings were merged, 20 – 30 cells were merged in an attempt to convince me that that was the way to group account numbers etc

I demonstrated centre across selection as an alternative for some column merges but some things should just not be merged at all!

Duncan Williamson

Maximise profits 4a + 3b
Subject to:
21a + 16b <= 336
13a + 25b <= 325
15a + 18b = 0

What this means is, in summary, there are two products, a and b, for us to consider. Product a earns us £4 per unit contribution (or profit) and product b earns us £3 per unit contribution.

There are three constraints, such as raw materials, direct labour and cash; or constraints such as skilled labour, unskilled labour and machine time

In any case, for example, raw materials might be available only up to a total of 336 kilogrammes and each unit of a uses 21 kg of the raw material and each unit if b uses 16 kg of that raw material.

That’s the problem: SOLVER will tell us how many units of a to make and how many units of b to make in order to maximise profits.

There are four tasks for this problem

a) solve this problem using SOLVER and make a note of the profit earned; AND when Excel offers to save your model as a scenario, say yes and type a name like scenario 1!
b) change the contribution per unit of b to £4 and ask SOLVER to rework the problem and make a note of the profit earned; AND save this attempt as a new scenario … scenario 2, is a good name!
c) with your solution to part b) you will find an answer such as x.xxxx units of a and y.yyyy units of b: let’s assume that we cannot make fractions of a product and make a note of the profit earned … use the integer setting in SOLVER to force it to give us our answers for a and b as integers or whole numbers. Save this as scenario 3
d) this is a profit maximisation problem: change it to a problem in which the profit MUST be, say £70 … rework the problem and see what happens …

The problem is not complex but it is rich in the ideas and feedback it provides. I hope you like the scenario manager addition, by the way. By selecting Data, Data Tools, What-If Analysis, Scenario Manager, you can compare the three scenarios you will be able to save during this exercise.

Try it!

If you need any help, drop me a line at info@excelmaster.co.uk and I will send you my completed worksheet!

Duncan Williamson

I have written an ebook on Excel 2007 and I am giving away chapters 1 to 3 of that book … one chapter at a time.

If you want chapter ONE, send an email to info@excelmaster.co.uk and I will send it to you asap.

Chapter 2 in a month and chapter 3 at new year!!

Best wishes

Duncan

Invite me over! We can do!

Duncan Williamson