Lauren Lummus

Author's posts

Microsoft Adds Key Features to Excel for iPad

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
Earlier this year I wrote about my mixed feelings on Excel for iPad's debut. My closing sentence for that article read “The early iterations of Microsoft products tend to have rough edges that get smoothed out with time.” I'm no Nostradamus, but my instincts were correct, as in the intervening months Microsoft has added some key elements to Excel for iPad.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

When Excel Dates Mysteriously Shift by 4 Years

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
If you've attended any of my free High Impact Excel webinars then you've probably heard me say that Excel is fraught with nuances. Sometimes the most mundane tasks, such as copying and pasting a series of dates from one workbook to another, can send you down a mysterious rabbit hole where things turn both curious and frustrating. In this article I'll explain why sometimes Excel dates may mysteriously change by 4 years, and to be more specific, 4 years and 1 day.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Hasten Your Departure with Pre-written Resignation Letter

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
Are you ready to pull the plug on your current gig, but feel intimidated by that blinking cursor at the top left-hand corner of a Word document? Microsoft Word has you covered with an array of prewritten letters of resignation. Yes, we here at Going Concern are always here to serve you.
Continue reading on www.goingconcern.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Exploring the Nuances of Excel’s SUM Function

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
My unscientific observation is that the SUM function is likely the most used—and abused—of all worksheet functions in Excel. Although the SUM function is far better than manually adding cells together (such as =B2+B3+B4+B5+B6+B7+B8), in this article I'll explore a couple nuances related to this venerable function.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Maximizing Excel’s Alt-Down Arrow Keyboard Shortcut

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
Alt-Down Arrow is one of my favorite keyboard shortcuts in Excel. First off, it gives me an easy means to speed through repetitive data entry within a column. Second, it allows me to access Excel's Filter arrows as well as Data Validation lists without using my mouse. I'll run through all three techniques in this article.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Automating an Excel-Based Financial Statement

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
QuickBooks allows you a fair amount of control over financial statements – just about any user can easily customize the built-in reports. Users of Enterprise Solutions and Accountant versions can go farther and use the Financial Statement Designer to integrate QuickBooks and Excel. Yet, sometimes neither of these options is sufficient, so users dump data over to Excel to start building their own reports. This, in turn, often results in repetitive efforts and data integrity issues. As soon as you add or change a single transaction in QuickBooks, your Excel-based financial statement is out of date. However, there’s a way to have your cake and eat it too. In this article, I’ll demonstrate how to build a three-sheet Excel workbook from which you’ll be able to easily view and update a profit and loss report for any month of the year.
Continue reading on www.sleeter.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Use Excel Pivot Tables to Analyze QuickBooks Data

by David Ringstrom

When it’s time to crunch numbers in QuickBooks, most users rely on reports within the software, while others turn to analytics programs. In either case, you may still sometimes need to analyze your accounting data in new ways. Pivot tables can make quick work of figuring out patterns or issues with your data that might be hard to discover otherwise. Pivot tables allow you to create instant reports and/or charts by dragging and dropping fields with your mouse. This means you can quickly rearrange even enormous reports into interactive, yet compact summaries.

See www.sleeter.com to read the rest of the article.

 

About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com  or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel, and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Embed Frequently Used Lists into Excel

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
As you're most likely aware, it's easy to instantly create a list of days of the week or months of the year. Just type either the first three letters or the full name of a day or month in a worksheet cell, and then drag the Fill Handle across a row or down a column. What you may not be aware of, is that this is part of the Custom Lists feature in Excel, and that you can add your own lists to use in the same fashion, as I recently noted in our AccountingWEB forum.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Why Solid State Drives are Worth the Extra Cost

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
I’ve been following solid state drives (SSD) for years now, always thinking they were too expensive. I finally chose to make the leap recently, thanks in part to a brief mention of SSDs by Carlton Collins, and now there’s no going back. If my article sounds like technical mumbo-jumbo so far, let me clarify: Laptop and desktop computers have traditionally been shipped with mechanical hard drives, which spin a stack of magnetic plates that save or retrieve information and launch programs. However, an SSD doesn't have moving parts and could be thought of as additional memory that you add to your computer that retains what you’ve stored when you turn the computer off. Because an SSD isn't mechanical, it’s extremely fast.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Creating an Equivalent to the MAXIF Function

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
Sometimes in Excel you may want to perform an analysis based on specific criteria. For instance, if I wanted to sum only the data in Figure 1 based on the month being equal to January, SUMIF would work. I could use COUNTIF to count the number of transactions in January, or in Excel 2007 and later use the AVERAGEIF function to average January's sales. However, what if I want to determine the largest amount for just the month of January? Although there's not a ready-made function, like MAXIF, I can easily adapt the MAX function to accomplish this.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Hackers have Discovered a Way into the Internet Explorer

by David Ringstrom,CPA
 
You're facing a clear and present danger if, you’re using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. This isn’t just another the-sky-is-falling alert; the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) issued an advisory this week. The particulars of the vulnerability are a bit nerdy, but the point is that by using IE, you may be opening your computer to an attack.
Continue reading on www.accountingweb.com.
About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link.

Make QuickBooks Data Analysis More Simple in Excel

by David Ringstrom

If you’re unfamiliar with certain naunces within the two programs, analyzing QuickBooks data in Excel can be an exercise in frustration. In this article, I’ll show you techniques for both programs that can transform how you crunch numbers. Among other things, I’ll share my favorite report for QuickBooks data analysis in Excel, a technique for creating one-click report access in QuickBooks, and a brief overview of the Table feature in Excel.

See www.sleeter.com to read the rest of the article.

 

About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com  or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel, and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link

My First Impressions of Excel for iPad

by David Ringstrom, CPA

 

Four years after the first iPad spreadsheet, users finally have a Microsoft-sanctioned solution. When I first installed Excel on my iPad, I immediately focused on its limitations, but upon reflection I see that Excel for iPad has certain strengths as well. To be sure, tablet computers have far to go before any heavy Excel user would be highly effective with this version. And out of the gate there are some key limitations to keep in mind:

The free version of the Excel for iPad app limits you to viewing documents onscreen. Any true functionality requires an Office 365 subscription, which for most users will run $99/year. Resist the urge to activate Excel for iPad within the app—sign up for the free 30 day trial online instead. Students can pay $79 for 4 years, or savvy searchers can purchase discounted Office 365 subscription keycards online through an online reseller.

 

Continue reading this article where it first appeared: www.accountingweb.com.

 

About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com  or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel, and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link

Step by Step

Steve and Joan Lambert have written a series of books titled Step by Step for Access 2013, Access 2010, and Access 2007.

Spreadsheet Check and Control

Patrick R O'Beirve created Spreadsheet Check and Control which helps users build better spreadsheets.