Comments on: Do You Really Need an ‘Advanced Excel’ Course?

By: Michael L.

Michael L. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:26:59 +0000

Wow, finally I found a group of people with the same thought process.
I’m a heavy duty Excel VBA Wall St developer and now opened my own Excel training school which will also specialize in training financial modelers with what is needed just for them.

My training assures that all material will be remembered (pretty neat thing) and it is tailored for the persons needs. It is not one day dinky course but a continuos combination of one-on-one tutoring and self study of the materials.

Would love to read all of your thoughts here on that.

michael@sophisoft.com

By: Danielle Stein Fairhurst

Danielle Stein Fairhurst — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:50:34 +0000

@Rickard – Yes, it’s so easy for financial modellers to to get bogged down in the technical Excel aspects of their model, get carried away with complex formulas and not focus on key high level, best practice procedures such as error checking strategies like model stress-testing.

@Jon – It’s true that “you don’t know what you don’t know” but most people have got to really think hard before spending the money and taking a day out of their schedules to commit to training workshops. There is no question that face-to-face workshops are very effective, and the best way of learning for many people, however, I would recommend that potential attendees exhaust the available blogs, forum and newsletters first.

By: Rickard warnelid

Rickard warnelid — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:26:15 +0000

@Danielle – Excel training is quite different to financial modelling training and I think you have very clearly identified how to approach this situation. In my view there would be a lot less errors in financial models if there was a stronger focus on financial modelling best practice techniques rather than to learn ‘Advanced Excel’.

When I audit financial models the biggest errors tend to occur in financial models where it’s clear that the modeller got carried away using above average complexity.

@Jon – Agree, but if all you are after is to have inspiration then maybe signing up to a decent newsletter could achieve that?

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:30:00 +0000

“Most Advanced Excel courses are very broad, and will cover functions and capabilities which do not apply to your needs as a financial modeller. You may learn a few tricks, but the time and money spent could be invested elsewhere.
“Research show that a large percentage of the skills learned in training courses are not retained. Will you really remember everything that you learned?”

By the same token, sitting in a training course gives you exposure to features you never knew about. You may not recall exactly how to do certain thing, but knowing it’s possible gives you a head start when you Google for it.

By: nicolas

nicolas — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:20:34 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. Ultimately, an excel course targeting your exact needs such as modelin for LBOs, project finance, acquisitions, etc allows one to both acquire industry specific techniques and excel functions commonly used to solve financial modeling specific issues.