[Superdude3000]

Any advice on level of Excel knowledge before beginning my first year in public accounting? Also, any online Excel training programs anybody knows of? I don’t start until the fall but I want to practice over the summer. Any help is very much appreciated!

REG - 92 (1/17)

BEC - 82 (2/17)

AUD - 89 (5/17)

FAR - 94 (9/17)

Rogers Elite + Becker mcqs/sims for all 4 exams

WA State Ethics Exam - 83, 83, 90 (9/17)

AICPA Ethics Exam - 95 (9/17)

1-year of work - complete (11/18)

Licensed WA State CPA

[RE2PECT]

I'm curious about this as well. I made a thread about it not long ago and got some good advice. I need to stop procrastinating and start learning this stuff. I'm still enjoying not having to study anymore and I'm making up for lost time with my wife and son.

Check out ExcelIsFun on youtube. They have workbooks you can download and follow along with the videos. Your local library may also give you access to lynda.com. My main issue is that I have a Mac and some of the functions and shortcuts are different.

Any good online Excel courses?

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

Roger & Ninja

FAR: 75
AUD: 73, 81
BEC: 71, 73, 82
REG: 68, 82

FAR: 75 Roger & Ninja (notes/flashcards/audio/MCQ)
AUD: 73, 81
BEC: 71, retake 8/29
REG:

[ThomasHallberg]

I don't know of any off the top of my head. However, if you do not know how to do Vlookups, Hlookups, and pivot tables, I would watch a YouTube video on each. Those can be a very powerful tool regardless of Audit vs Tax. I also watched videos on little keystroke shortcuts that tend to speed up efficiency.

AUD - 81
BEC - 77
FAR - 76
REG - 75

How does Santa's accountant value his sleigh? Net Present Value

Good luck favors the prepared

KPMG Audit

[C / X]

Udemy usually has $10-15 specials deals for any course and I have bought excel (and programming courses) from them. When I was in school I loved learning different software applications so you can also try a community college class (except programming- I hate that with a passion but if you can learn VBA on Excel you’re way ahead of the game).

Unfortunately I haven’t used any of them yet because I don’t get anything from it as I need a grade or something to motivate me…so I have no idea how good they are. I think there are deals on stuff like groupon too, so you can look there for something cheap. TBH I don’t learn any new excel skills until I need them and then I google/youtube/what I think I might need but if you don’t have a basic/proficient foundation on excel then it’s probably a good idea.

Basic Excel Skills any Accountant worth their salt should know:

Formulas: SUMIF, ROUND, etc.
Ctrl+F (replace), filter
Linking workbook formulas (but if you do- remember not to break the link or copy-paste values* when you’re done with the workbook link).

Intermediate Accounting Excel skills I have actually used/needed:
Create (and UPDATE* or add additional data/features to pivot tables)
Text to columns (delimited and special character (including just a space which is “ “)
Vlookup (for big data that’s put into excel from crappy software) it is a lifesaver.
Grouping/Subtotal, filter

**variance/reconciliation analysis***– not an actual excel feature but the only safe example I can share was I once was trying to find out why there was about a $6+ difference in two different item lists that came out of different softwares (Turned out it was pretty easy- one program would round to two decimals, the other one didn’t round and with a very very long amount of items it made a difference- so it’s not always a mistake).

****Accounting is all about reconciling and I remember a teacher saying use it or lose it. So I learned how by customizing and using excel to keep track of my stuff (since we accountants need to keep track of everything). I have this thing where I reconcile my monthly cash in Excel with my Weekly payment/bills/etc in another workbook so I recommend doing something like that to practice reconciling. I went from sometimes being like $40 off (weekly)when I first started off to now only being a dollar or two off (since I only keep track of dollars and not change). I can’t really show you mine as reference because it has my fin data on it, but I use free calendar templates and references from my own experience to create it. Maybe later I can create a dummy one, but not right now, so I can try and explain it you want to but visuals are almost always better.

AUD - 82
BEC - 85
FAR - NINJA in Training
REG - 80

Now or Never!

[C / X]

Know this wasn’t asked for but I thought I would share this too since it might help people with No/Little Accounting experience.

GENERAL Acct career advice (when starting out).

1. When first starting out you will be slow and no matter the deadline, don’t rush. Double to triple-check your work and make sure the next person can reference it easily.

2. Back-up your work (twice daily at least). I have personal usb drives with my own very sensitive financial data (that I won’t even put in cloud-based applications) and I’ve had a few times where my drives got corrupted but I only lost a week of stuff (this wk..grr) since I back them up as much as I can.

Don’t take it personally when you’re in public and others accountants aren’t thrilled to see you, but be polite because you NEED to bother them for YOUR work. They’re busy and you’re messing with their stuff (and telling them what they did wrong, so when you give it back to them make sure you give it back EVEN in the same order they gave it you if you can. You may ask a question but if you don’t have any actual accounting experience you are going to need to make sure you are able to communicate what you actually want really well (because what ppl say they want and what they actually want are too different things). People that have done their jobs 4-5 years or jobs like it are going to leave out a lot of steps/things that you might need. **And write a lot of notes*** (I liked to use one-note and color-coding in excel to make them pretty (and also snipping tool is your best friend).

4. Summarize checklists to KISS as a lot of time there is plenty of data/info but it’s so much “blah,blah” that you need to weed it out, so you’re not reading a book every time you’re doing stuff.

Hope this helps.

AUD - 82
BEC - 85
FAR - NINJA in Training
REG - 80

Now or Never!

[Superdude3000]

Thanks everyone, this is very helpful!

REG - 92 (1/17)

BEC - 82 (2/17)

AUD - 89 (5/17)

FAR - 94 (9/17)

Rogers Elite + Becker mcqs/sims for all 4 exams

WA State Ethics Exam - 83, 83, 90 (9/17)

AICPA Ethics Exam - 95 (9/17)

1-year of work - complete (11/18)

Licensed WA State CPA

[Pete]

“When first starting out you will be slow and no matter the deadline, don’t rush. Double to triple-check your work and make sure the next person can reference it easily.”

It's a balancing act. You don't want to make errors, but you also have to make sure you're able to move at a somewhat fast pace. I've had one manager yelling at me for not moving fast enough, making a fairly large scene about it. Pretty sure, even though it wasn't mentioned at my review, it still hurt me.

I guess it also really depends on the manager.

B=84 This exam was such a b**** that I thought I failed-don't know how these things work
A=76 Slacker I am, I'll happily take it
R=81 I LOVE taxes
F=80 I don't wanna get banned for an expletive I'm thinking with "yea" proceeding it

[CPA8675309]

I would also recommend ExcelIsFun on Youtube. This particular video is pretty comprehensive (at least up to intermediate skills if I recall): https://youtu.be/kNaxTNSAtLk. It looks like he has a few other accounting videos as well if you search for excelisfun and accounting. There are a lot more videos if there's a particular skill you'd like to learn. Like @Re2pect mentioned, the very nice thing is he includes the workbooks, so you can pause the video and work on something yourself.

AUD - 77
BEC - 85
FAR - 84
REG - 85

I'm done!!

[Anonymous]

Must know skills are Pivot table, vlookups, SUMIFS. Also get familiar with Index and Match function. They can come in handy.
Know how to do reconciliations or variance analysis using a pivot table. It will make your life much easier.

Also the most one of the most important technique I learned 2 years in my career and which I knew from the start is how to flatten data. As an accountant it will be a life saver simply because you will be interacting with data exported from many sources and not by default be in a format for analysis. I've shared this with many accounting colleagues because I know how important it is.
Here is link explaining how to flatten data. Google this phrase How to Flatten, Repeat, and Fill Labels Down in Excel

[Anonymous]

Here is a youtube video explaining the flattening technique. here

[C / X]

Raftus: I've never done actual public accounting but I'm pretty sure they want you to be fast and accurate so I agree. But I don't know how that's possible when you're first starting out, and accounting emphasizes “accurate” more, but I guess it would be different when you're referencing other's people's work. I have had the opposite problem where it was (right in the end )and I made a very rushed deadline but the person got mad because you could kind of tell..lol.

So Sorry to hear about that- There is enough pressure already in that industry (but if you make it through I admire you..one day I might have the guts…). But the only thing that make you appreciate a good manager more is when you deal with the bad ones.

AUD - 82
BEC - 85
FAR - NINJA in Training
REG - 80

Now or Never!

[OdellBj]

Lynda.com is a great resource. Many colleges it give you free access as a student and you can probable access it on the school's portal (if your school gives you access). You can honestly learn anything on that website and they have very extensive videos.

[OdellBj]

Lynda.com is a great resource. Many colleges give you free access as a student and you can probably access it on the school's portal (if your school gives you access). You can honestly learn anything on that website and they have very extensive videos.

[Mike J]

@CPA8675309 and others,

I'm a little rusty on Excel. I plan on reviewing this video on ExcellsFun: https://youtu.be/v5l82vjuMpY

Can you recommend others there? There are a lot there.

@bobby thanks for the flattening video. That seems like a real Time saver. Likewise, can you recommend other specific videos to earmark?

Thanks!

AUD - 90
BEC - 79
FAR - 77
REG - 77

They don't trust JUST ANYBODY to count beans

[Anonymous]

The 3 top resources I would recommend are
1 – The book Exploring Excel 2010 Comprehensive by Grauer Mulbery & Poatsy. Make sure its the comprehensive and not basic version and the year depends on your version of excel.
This book is one of the best resources I've very seen for learning excel. It teaches you everything from beginner to intermediate excel and gives you a solid foundation. I thought I knew excel however this book showed me that I did not even scratch the surface. Each chapter explains different concepts step by step. There are practice questions at the end of each chapter and with the complete solutions.

2 – Second recommendation is from excel university. Google it. On the website, click on book, then scroll down and look for the videos. The videos are supposed to be used with the book, but they are good enough that you don't need the book. I've really learned a lot just watching the videos as I'v never bought the book.

3 – Microsoft Excel 2010 Data Analysis and Business Modeling by Wayne L Winston. This book contains almost everything you need to know about excel as an accountant. I have on a work desk as an reference book.
The book better as a reference book than a step by step tutorial because of how its written. But it was worth the investment.

[M123]

The days of the sufficiency of vlookup and sumif and pivot tables are numbered.

The future will be PowerPivot and PowerQuery (add ons to Excel) to support higher volume, faster analysis and more features.

Create scenarios that might resemble real life scenarios – such as completeness and accuracy. Let's say we want to trace AR documents to GL or vice versa. Create two tabs, then start using a combination of sumif and vlookup to get an understanding of what those do.

Then start digging into more advanced functions like “sumifs” (not a spelling error) and the power add ons.

Also – string functions are very important when analyzing data across systems. Trailing spaces or different punctuations can require replace function and concatenate.

Videos are good but no substitute for trial, error and finally – winning.

AUD - 77
BEC - 81
FAR - 77
REG - 81

REG - 1. Becker only - fail (forgot to study depr - oops); 2. Becker only - Pass
FAR - 1. Becker only - fail; 2. added Ninja Notes and MCQ - Pass
AUD - 1. Becker videos; Ninja Notes, Audio, MCQ, Becker Notes - Pass
BEC - 1. Ninja Notes, Audio, MCQ, Becker Notes - Pass

[Author]

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