Using Excel for Business Analysis, + Website

Book Description

This is a clear, concise, and easy-to-use guide to financial modelling suitable for practitioners at every level. Using a fundamental approach to financial modelling that's accessible to both new and experienced professionals, "Using Excel for Business Analysis: A Guide to Financial Modelling Fundamentals + Website" offers practical guidance for anyone looking to build financial models for business proposals, to evaluate opportunities, or to craft financial reports. Comprehensive in nature, the book covers the principles and best practices of financial modelling, including the Excel tools, formulas, and functions to master, and the techniques and strategies necessary to eliminate errors. As well as explaining the essentials of financial modelling, "Using Excel for Business Analysis" is packed with exercises and case studies to help you practice and test your comprehension, and includes additional resources online. This title provides comprehensive coverage of the principles and best practices of financial modeling, including planning, how to structure a model, layout, the anatomy of a good model, rebuilding an inherited model, and much more. It demonstrates the technical Excel tools and techniques needed to build a good model successfully. It outlines the skills you need to learn in order to be a good financial modeller, such as technical, design, and business and industry knowledge. It illustrates successful best practice modeling techniques such as linking, formula consistency, formatting, and labeling. It describes strategies for reducing errors and how to build error checks and other methods to ensure accurate and robust models. A practical guide for professionals, including those who do not come from a financial background, "Using Excel for Business Analysis" is a fundamentals-rich approach to financial modeling.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 What Is Financial Modelling?
Chapter 2 Building A Model
Chapter 3 Best Practice Principles Of Modelling
Chapter 4 Financial Modelling Techniques
Chapter 5 Using Excel In Financial Modelling
Chapter 6 Functions For Financial Modelling
Chapter 7 Tools For Model Display
Chapter 8 Tools For Financial Modelling
Chapter 9 Common Uses Of Tools In Financial Modelling
Chapter 10 Model Review
Chapter 11 Stress-Testing, Scenarios, And Sensitivity Analysis In Financial Modelling
Chapter 12 Presenting Model Output

About The Author

Danielle Stein Fairhurst

Danielle Stein Fairhurst is the principal of Plum Solutions, a Sydney-based financial modelling consultancy. With her talent for analytical modelling and professional approach, Danielle helps her clients create meaningful financial models for business analysis. Over past decades she has worked in a number of industry sectors, including telecoms, information systems, manufacturing, and financial services, with solutions such as business cases, pricing models, and management reports. She is regularly engaged as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant around Australia and globally. She holds a master of business administration (MBA) from Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and has taught management accounting subjects at Sydney University. Danielle lives in Sydney with her husband and two children, but travels widely and enjoys the challenge of balancing a healthy family lifestyle with her passion for financial modelling pedagogy.