Building Financial Models with Microsoft Excel. A Guide for Business Professionals

Utilise Excel 2013 capabilities to build effective financial models Using Excel for Business Analysis, Revised Edition provides practical guidance for anyone looking to build financial models. Whether for business proposals, opportunity evaluation, financial reports, or any other business finance application, this book shows you how to design, create, and test your model, then present your results effectively using Excel 2013. The book opens with a general guide to financial modelling, with each subsequent chapter building skill upon skill until you have a real, working model of your own. Financial tools, features, and functions are covered in detail from a practical perspective, and put in context with application to real-world examples. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of Excel modelling, including step-by-step instructions that walk you through each feature, and the companion website provides live model worksheets that give you the real hands-on practice you need to start doing your job faster, more efficiently, and with fewer errors. Financial modelling is an invaluable business tool, and Excel 2013 is capable of supporting the most common and useful models most businesses need. This book shows you how to dig deeper into Excel's functionality to craft effective financial models and provide important information that informs good decision-making. Learn financial modelling techniques and best practice Master the formulas and functions that bring your model to life Apply stress testing and sensitivity analysis with advanced conditionals Present your results effectively, whether graphically, orally, or written A deceptively powerful application, Excel supports many hundreds of tools, features, and functions; Using Excel for Business Analysis eliminates the irrelevant to focus on those that are most useful to business finance users, with detailed guidance toward utilisation and best practice.

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation. Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to: Understand the importance of context and audience Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience Together, the lessons in this book will help you turn your data into high impact visual stories that stick with your audience. Rid your world of ineffective graphs, one exploding 3D pie chart at a time. There is a story in your data—Storytelling with Data will give you the skills and power to tell it!

Bridge the big data gap with Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools for Excel Analysts The distinction between departmental reporting done by business analysts with Excel and the enterprise reporting done by IT departments with SQL Server and SharePoint tools is more blurry now than ever before. With the introduction of robust new features like PowerPivot and Power View, it is essential for business analysts to get up to speed with big data tools that in the past have been reserved for IT professionals. Written by a team of Business Intelligence experts, Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools for Excel Analysts introduces business analysts to the rich toolset and reporting capabilities that can be leveraged to more effectively source and incorporate large datasets in their analytics while saving them time and simplifying the reporting process. Walks you step-by-step through important BI tools like PowerPivot, SQL Server, and SharePoint and shows you how to move data back and forth between these tools and Excel Shows you how to leverage relational databases, slice data into various views to gain different visibility perspectives, create eye-catching visualizations and dashboards, automate SQL Server data retrieval and integration, and publish dashboards and reports to the web Details how you can use SQL Server’s built-in functions to analyze large amounts of data, Excel pivot tables to access and report OLAP data, and PowerPivot to create powerful reporting mechanisms You’ll get on top of the Microsoft BI stack and all it can do to enhance Excel data analysis with this one-of-a-kind guide written for Excel analysts just like you.

This book is going to challenge you and everything you think you know about succession planning. For independent advisors, succession planning is quickly becoming the cornerstone to a strategic growth strategy designed to perpetuate their business and their income streams beyond their own lifetime, while providing a multi-generational service platform that attracts and rewards younger advisors. This makes succession planning one of the most, if not the most, important practice management tools in this industry today. As an independent financial advisor, now is the time to address the question of what will happen to your practice and your clients after you “exit the building.” In most cases, the answers are right in front of you. Thankfully, Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business has arrived to transform today’s practices into businesses designed to endure and prosper and serve generations of clients. Learn how to create a “Lifestyle Succession Plan” that can provide a lifetime of income and benefits to the founder even as he/she gradually retires on the job Unlock the power of equity management – the best planning and building tool an independent advisor owns Learn how to attract and retain the best of the next generation to help you build a great business and to support your succession plans and care for your clients and their families Determine precisely when to start a formal succession plan and related continuity plan so that your business can work for you when you need it most Understand why succession planning and selling your business are completely different strategies, but how they can complement each other when used correctly 95% of independent financial service professionals are one owner practices. To the positive, these practices are among the most valuable professional service models in America. But almost all advisors are assembling their practices using the wrong tools – tools borrowed from historically successful, but vastly different models including wirehouses, broker-dealers, and even OSJ’s and branch managers. Revenue sharing, commission splitting and other eat-what-you-kill compensation methods dominate the independent sector and virtually ensure that today’s independent practices, if left unchanged, will not survive the end of their founder’s career. It is time to change course and this book provides the map and the details to help you do just that. For independent practice owners and staff members, advisors who want to transition to independence, as well as accountants, attorneys, coaches and others involved in the financial services space, there are invaluable lessons to be learned from Succession Planning for Financial Advisors. Written by the leading succession planning expert in the financial services industry, former securities regulator, M&A specialist, and founder of the nationally recognized consulting and equity management firm, FP Transitions, David Grau Sr., JD, has created an unmatched resource that will have an enduring and resounding impact on an entire industry.

Proven leadership strategies that will impact your career and your company Having the right CFO is a critical component for every company's success. Guide to CFO Success provides CFOs and those in the making with a strategic blueprint to benefit their companies and their careers. This book reveals how to build a strong, successful career plan with guidance on team building and management of the multiple relationships that CFOs face on a daily basis, plus how to balance one's work and personal life. Offers strategic guidance for leadership growth for CFOs Presents essential information for every CFO who wants to play a tactical role in their organization Includes best practices for building and developing the most effective Finance Team Features practical career advice for future Chief Financial Officers From balancing one's work and personal life to dealing with the CEO, Guide to CFO Success has the answers you need to plan for a strong and successful career.

A practical guide to building fully operational financial cash flow models for structured finance transactions Structured finance and securitization deals are becoming more commonplace on Wall Street. Up until now, however, market participants have had to create their own models to analyze these deals, and new entrants have had to learn as they go. Modeling Structured Finance Cash Flows with Microsoft Excel provides readers with the information they need to build a cash flow model for structured finance and securitization deals. Financial professional Keith Allman explains individual functions and formulas, while also explaining the theory behind the spreadsheets. Each chapter begins with a discussion of theory, followed by a section called «Model Builder,» in which Allman translates the theory into functions and formulas. In addition, the companion website features all of the modeling exercises, as well as a final version of the model that is created in the text. Note: Companion website and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Reviews from previous editions: «Excel for Chemists should be part of any academic library offering courses and programs in Chemistry.» —Choice «I highly recommend the book; treat yourself to it; assign it to a class; give it as a gift.» —The Nucleus The newly revised step-by-step guide to using the scientific calculating power of Excel to perform a variety of chemical calculations Chemists across all subdisciplines use Excel to record data in tabular form, but few have learned to take full advantage of the program. Featuring clear step-by-step instructions, Excel for Chemists illustrates how to use the scientific calculating power of Excel to perform a variety of chemical calculations. Including a CD-ROM for Windows, this new edition provides chemists and students with a detailed guide to using the current versions of Excel (Excel 2007 and 2010) as well as Excel 2003. Additional features in this third edition include: How to perform a variety of chemical calculations by creating advanced spreadsheet formulas or by using Excel’s built-in tools How to automate repetitive tasks by programming Excel’s Visual Basic for Applications New chapters show how to import data from other language versions of Excel, and how to create automatic procedures The accompanying CD contains a number of Excel macros to facilitate chemical calculations, including molecular weight, nonlinear regression statistics, and data interpolation Several appendices provide extensive lists of useful shortcut keys and function descriptions

The Fintech Entrepreneur’s Guide to Regulation and Regulatory Strategy Fintech has been growing dramatically over the last few years, and it is now an important sector in its own right. This means that Fintech companies, who could so far often rely on a comparatively lenient regulatory regime, will now have to give serious thoughts on compliance with applicable regulatory rules. Operating in a highly regulated environment is tedious, but not all bad—companies that can play the regulatory game well have a strategic advantage, especially with regard to time-to-market and scaling. Nothing spells missed opportunity like a competitor building market share with a copycat product whilst you are still waiting for your license! Written for professionals, this book helps anyone whose job has to do with formulating or executing a Fintech startup strategy or whose job touches financial services regulation, or anyone who simply wants an easy- to-read introduction to financial services and their regulation. Describes the purpose of and principle behind modern financial services regulation Explains how to include regulation into a startup’s strategic planning to optimize time-to-market and scaling Gives an overview of the entire financial services space, and which regulations apply where Gives detailed references to 20 key regulations in the EU regulatory system, including PSD, GDPR, CRD, AMLD, MiFID, UCITSD, AIFMD The first part introduces financial services regulation, its purpose, how it is created (especially in the EU and in the US), and it develops a framework for including regulations into the strategic planning of a company. It also gives a rundown of the current financial services space—players and products—and its key regulations. The second part describes a regulatory system in more detail. The system chosen is the EU because it is more consistent and unified than the US system where a lot of the regulation still is created at the state-level. However, as most financial regulation nowadays is determined at the global level, the principles found in EU regulation will be by and large also be found the US and other systems.

The newly updated guide to design process modeling techniques Designing with Models, Third Edition is the revised, step-by-step guide to basic and advanced design process modeling. This comprehensive text explains the process from start to finish, and has been expanded to include up-to-date information on digital modeling programs and rapid prototyping processes. The impact of this new wave of 3D modeling technology is examined through interviews and numerous examples from renowned architects. Along with many new student projects, this new Third Edition features information on cutting-edge digital imaging equipment and design software, as well as many new process models from celebrated professional projects. Architect Criss Mills acquaints architecture and design professionals with essential modeling terms, design processes, equipment, materials, and construction methods. Fully updated with nearly 200 new photos and twenty-six new projects from students and firms, Designing with Models, Third Edition walks readers through the basics of: Material and tool selection Construction techniques Determining scale Generating ideas Exploring design processes and alternatives Modifying design work directly on the model Developing design work through modeling scale Offering increased emphasis on transitioning from hand craft to digital craft, this thorough Third Edition also provides easy-to-follow guidelines for modeling with advanced tools and materials, demonstrating how to: Master the modeling of curvilinear components with planar material and casting techniques Explore ideas with mixed media, such as wood, found objects, metal rods and screens, clay, and Plexiglas Work backwards from model information to produce 2D plan, section, and elevation drawings Record and communicate 3D design work Begin exploring the safe and effective use of power tools, such as belt sanders, table saws, drills, band saws, and welding equipment