Excel

Excel-ling in Small Business : Three functions of Microsoft Excel

Owning and maintaining a small business these days is no more of the described daunting tasks of manually doing tasks like before . In the past , using spreadsheets , accounting of daily sales , not to mention the payroll , daily sales report and the credit-debit tables , one could spell out the word three words beginning with 'T ' - tedious , tiring and troublesome

As many small business owners have to do , expansion could mean additional headache . Consequently , an owner should relinquish some hands-on control when his

business grew . One had to hire new employees for each store and the worries about the possibility of bookkeeping errors and worse , fraud . Adding to concerns is the need to install modern electronic technologies to link other locations , instead of trusted family members responsible for a single cash register , an owner can now have many operators at point-of-sale (POS ) terminals and purchasing agents in different locations handling electronic disbursements to hundreds of vendors - an ideal environment for irregularities . The POS system produced spreadsheets that tracked daily sales , returns and disbursement data--all of which could be operated by an employee . While the POS tool could generate custom financial reports useful for decision making , it could not spot clues about irregularities (Womack , 1992

Using Microsoft Excel makes these business tasks easier for the owners I will list three of the most helpful functions of this remarkable software to business owners

Organizing your Data . Collected reams of financial data from your business could be translated into tables that these data could appear easy readable . Microsoft Office Excel 2003 worksheets would allow you to draw meaningful conclusions about your company 's current status and future health from those numbers

Presenting your Data . Using Microsoft Excel , you could transform your numerical data into tables and graphs . You could easily customize and put colors for your numbers not to look bland and boring to read . With better presentation options , one could highlight important items that need attention , group similar data and increase the speed the reader to process these data

Analyzing your Data . When doing data input , you could key in a function that would calculate your numbers in automatically . PivotTable reports a feature of Excel , can help you analyze your data from multiple perspectives , making it easier for you to discover patterns and exceptions and make faster , better business decisions . You can use PivotTable reports to modify lists of numbers so that they emphasize key data . For example , a long list detailing a company 's labor costs over the past year may not provide illuminating information at a glance . But the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard make it a snap to rearrange the numbers in the data list so that you can immediately see how labor costs are allocated across departments (Microsoft Office Online , 2003

With these three basic functions of Microsoft Excel , a business owner 's workload nowadays could be decreased tremendously . In the past twentieth century , businessmen have utilized a wide range of information systems to improve their decisions

However , in this twenty-first century , businessmen necessitate to take a higher level of business tools to provide them with the ability to optimize their enterprise ' More specifically , optimization empowers them to assess a myriad of possibilities in to find the best one or near best one . At this time , the focus of smart business systems for the optimized organization centers on the functional areas of a typical company , in particular , corporate planning , marketing , manufacturing and accounting . Definitely , Microsoft Excel could perform all these functions

Works Cited

Excel . Microsoft Office Online , 2003 . Acquired online last November 17 2005 at HYPERLINK "http /office .microsoft .com /en-us /FX3 .aspx http /office .microsoft .com /en-us /FX3 .aspx

Womack , Denise E . Electronic Business Tool . Black Enterprise . vol . 23 no . 2 . Publication , September 1992 ,

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