Financial Modeling for Decision Making
Using MS-Excel in Accounting and Finance
Ron Messer
- 412 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Financial Modeling for Decision Making
Using MS-Excel in Accounting and Finance
Ron Messer
About This Book
Most books on Microsoft Excel for accounting and finance serve primarily academic research purposes: they are relatively unstructured and dominated by discussions of rather esoteric and infrequently used applications. None addresses the growing need for an introduction to crucial data analytic skills (i.e., analysis of 'big data') and to the recent innovations by Microsoft Excel in this regard, including Power Query (data cleaning and management), Power Pivot (advanced pivot tables using databases) and Power BI (creating executive KPI dashboards).
In Financial Modeling for Decision Making: Using MS-Excel in Accounting and Finance, Ron Messer provides just such a practical, advanced-level guide to this essential program. Crucially, he focuses on using Excel in situations encountered by accounting and finance students and professionals, and he structures these in terms of the past, present and future in order to reflect a typical operating cycle, which includes initial planning, exercising control, and receiving feedback. Throughout this book, Messer discusses real-life applications of this important analytical tool, which has become the industry standard for spreadsheet software.
For its clear structure and emphasis on practical usage, Financial Modeling for Decision Making is essential reading for accounting and finance professionals, as well as accounting and finance students in post-secondary institutions.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Introduction
Chapter 1
Better Learning Decisions
- Budget development and management
- Product and service costing and pricing
- Cash management
- Financial reporting
- External and internal auditing
- Evaluating information systems risk and controls
- Enterprise risk management
- Personal and corporate taxation
- Corporate finance
- Capital budgeting
- Financial systems development and implementation
- Developing financial policies and procedures
How to Learn (and Teach) Financial Modeling
Learning Financial Modeling
- Snapshot: A chapter overview for each decision context, outlining the (1) topic, (2) subject area, (3) decisions made, (4) authorâs experience, and (5) relevant Excel functionality for building the financial model.
- Background theory: As this book addresses both Excel functionality and its application to decision-making, an overview of the relevant accounting and finance theory will be providedâfor example, a discussion of discounted cash flows and using the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) when making capital budgeting decisions.
- Financial management techniques: The section will address the formulas used in decisionâmakingâfor example, the calculation of the break-even point in unit sales is: Fixed costs Ă· unit contribution margin.
- Using Excel functionality: The key Excel functions, including formulas, for each decision-making context are discussed.
- Demonstration Exercise: A detailed, guided exercise on using Excel to develop a financial model for decision-making is shown.
- Afterthought: The author provides someâhopefully, thought-provokingâcommentary on the chapter topic as food for thought.