Mba's Guide to Microsoft Excel 2000: The Essential Excel Reference for Business Professionals

By Stephen L. Nelson

Describes how to use Excel's often poorly documented tools for statistical analysis, financial calculations, sharing corporate data, and optimization modeling. Softcover. CD-ROM included. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967298105
• ISBN13: 9780967298108
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Redmond Technology Pr
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.5" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Author clears up some confusion

I thought that I'd respond to the curious conflicts in reader reviews. If you read all the posted reviews, you'll note that 2-3 readers really don't like the MBA's Guide to Excel. Other readers really do like the book. I've thought about this a bit. And what I actually think is that both readers are right. And here's why I say this.The critics make two points: One, that the book doesn't cover more than the online documentation covers. Two, that the book doesn't really help someone do upper-division, graduate finance stuff. Both points are right, sort of, but let me respond because I think it's easy to misunderstand the readers comments and because as the author I have a unique perspective on the book.First, as regard to the point about the book not providing additional information, this isn't true. But the criticism hints at something that's important to consider. The first two-thirds of the MBA's Guide to Excel explains the mechanics of using Excel. This mechanical information is available or mostly available in the online help. This criticism, of course, can be made of any tutorial on Excel. However, for readers who would be happy to read 20 or 50 or 200 pages of onscreen help and don't care if the online help doesn't provide figures and practical business examples, online help is the better option. Some people should forego buying and reading a book. Many people do like books however. Ever when they cover much of the same ground.As to the second criticism, that the book doesn't cover graduate finance topics, I think the point is very fair and an important point to consider. This book isn't the MBA's Guide to Corporate Finance. This book isn't about financial engineering with Excel. This book is a a business professional's reference to Excel. However, I must point out that it's simply inaccurate to say that the business projects covered in the last third of the book aren't useful to MBAs and other business professionals or aren't MBA-ish. For example, the business planning information (also known as financial statement modeling) goes way beyond the material covered in other Excel books and shows someone how to create a combined income statement, cash flow and balance sheet model. The same thing is true of the capital expenditure analysis. The same thing is true of the profit-volume-cost analysis. But, to be fair to the critical readers, the MBA's Guide to Excel is not an exhaustive compendeum of every business application of Excel. The book covers a handful of common business applications (business planning, capital expenditure analysis, profit-volume analysis, etc.). But it doesn't cover them all. And it emphasizes general business applications of Excel that might be useful in just about any business. It doesn't cover specialized applications of interest only to specific groups (financial engineers or CPAS) or specific industries.The bottomline, I suggest, is that if you're a business user looking for an Excel tutorial or Excel reference, you'

MBA's Guide a great resource

I recommend this book to anyone interested in using Excel for constructing and analyzing financial statements. The book provides the templates and structures to get you on your way. With the clear explanations you will soon feel comfortable constructing your own economic models. Seeing the logic behind each line in the models is quite valuable as is the ability to use the other parts of the book for things such as running scenarios and developing statistical analysis.

Clearly written and just at the right level

Please note that much of this book will not be of interest to those who are not concerned with the business applications of excel. But the first part of this book, which explains the bread and butter of excel, i.e. making tables, formatting, and explaining how to use formulas, is the most clearly written of any book on excel I have seen. Furthermore, the text is written at an ideal level, whereas many others are either far to simply written (and thus use more pages)or too confusing (badly written). I believe that this book contains all you need to know to use excel well in a business setting. I am happy I bought the book.

Sets The Standard For Excel Books

This well-written book is for the professional business user of Microsoft Excel. The topics cover a range of business uses of Excel, including modeling, statistics, break-even analysis, forecasting, and depreciation. Also included for new users to Excel are QuickPrimers, short tutorials on Excel's worksheet and graphics capability.The design of The MBA's Guide to Microsoft Excel 2000 is clean and crisp and its contents speak to the user in a friendly yet knowledgeable voice. The book distinguishes itself from other Excel books by the inclusion of EasyRefreshers, a summary of business practices and processes, an additional benefit to the reader.The MBA's Guide to Microsoft Excel 2000 helps you perform business spreadsheet tasks quickly and easily.

A Great Companion for Business

This book is a great primer: not only for the aspiring MBA, but also for the business type who needs a refresher on how to put together balance sheets and more.This book is split into three parts: Quick Primers, Excel in Business and Starter Workbooks. With the Quick Primers, anyone can learn to be a pro on Excel. Excel in Business covers basic financial and statistical calculations. The Starter Workbooks provide templates for anyone in business to work out key financial statements and business plans.The MBA's Guide to Microsoft Excel would also work well as a companion guide for anyone who is taking beginning / intermediate level courses in Accounting or Finance.