Category: AccountingWEB articles

Dec 08

Excel Tip: Hide an Excel Worksheet in Plain Sight

Excel Tip: Hide an Excel Worksheet in Plain Sight


By David Ringstrom, CPA


As you’re probably aware, it’s simple to hide a worksheet in Excel 2007: right-click on the worksheet tab, and then choose Hide. To unhide the worksheet, right-click on any worksheet tab, choose Unhide, and then select the sheet you wish to make visible. It’s a little more effort in earlier versions of Excel: choose Format, Sheet, and then Hide or Unhide to change the visible status of a worksheet.

Since most users know these tricks, hiding a worksheet is sometimes of little value, because someone else can simply unhide it. Protecting a workbook makes it harder, but savvy users then know that you have something to hide. In such cases, a user might visit www.lostpassword.com or search the Internet to secure an unlocking utility. However, you can take this arms race to new levels by making a worksheet “very hidden,” which will make it appear as if there are no hidden worksheets within your workbook. To do so, you must access the Visual Basic Editor:

 

  • Excel 2007: Click the Visual Basic icon in the Code section of the Developer tab of the ribbon. If you don’t have a Developer tab, click the Office button, and then choose Excel options. In the Popular section, choose Show Developer Tab in Ribbon, and then click OK.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Tools, Macro, and then Visual Basic Editor.

Keyboard shortcut: Press Alt-F11 to access the Visual Basic Editor in any version of Excel.

Within the Visual Basic Editor you’ll need to make sure that both the Project Explorer and Properties Window are displayed, as shown in Figure 1. If you don’t see either of these, choose View, and then Project Explorer and/or Properties Window, as needed.

Figure 1: You may have to turn the Project Explorer and Properties windows on.

You’re now ready to hide an Excel worksheet in such a way that the vast majority of Excel users will never find it:

 

  1. Locate the workbook in question within the Project Explorer window. Click once on the file name if you don’t see a Microsoft Excel Objects folder.
  2. Within the Microsoft Excel Objects folder for a given workbook, you’ll see a list of worksheets, as shown in Figure 2. Click once on the worksheet that you wish to hide.

Figure 2: The Properties Window allows you to change the visible property of a worksheet.

 

  1. Set the Visible property in the Properties Window to xlSheetVeryHidden, as shown in Figure 2. Note that by default the next worksheet on the list will be selected once you change this property, so it may appear that your change didn’t take effect. However, if you click on the worksheet name again in the Project Explorer window, you’ll see that the xlSheetVeryHidden property is set.
  2. Choose File, and then Close and Return to Excel.

To test your handiwork, return to Excel, and try to unhide the worksheet. As shown in Figure 3, you should find that the Unhide command is disabled, even though the workbook contains a hidden worksheet. To make the sheet visible again, return to the Visual Basic Editor and set the Visible property for that worksheet back to xlSheetVisible.

Figure 3: The xlSheetVeryHidden will prevent the average user from discovering your hidden worksheets.




A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Oct 29

Three tricks for formatting rows in Excel

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA



I'm sure that you've worked with data sets in Excel where the information starts blurring together. In this article I discuss several techniques that I use avoid getting lost in the forest. First I'll briefly describe the Table feature in Excel 2007 and Excel 2010, and then share some conditional formatting tricks for anyone that's still using an earlier version of Excel.
It's easy to change the color of every other row in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 worksheet:
1.     Select a single cell within your list of data.
2.     Choose Format as Table from the Styles section of the Home ribbon, and then choose a color scheme, as shown in Figure 1.
3.     As shown in Figure 2, Excel will automatically determine the cell coordinates of your table. If you choose the My Table Has Headers option, then Excel will add Filter arrows at the top. As an added bonus, if your table is longer than what you can see on a single screen, your header row contents will move into the worksheet frame when you scroll down, as shown in Figure 3.
4.     To eliminate the table, choose Convert to Range in the Tools section of the Design tab that appears when you click on the table. The formatting remains in place, so to eliminate it you can either choose new formatting, or use the Clear Formatting command in the Editing section of the Home ribbon.
Figure 1: Excel 2007's Format as Table feature.
 
Figure 2: Excel automatically determines the cell coordinates of your table.
Figure 3: Your header row appears in the worksheet frame when you scroll beyond the first screen.
 
The Table feature is a fast way to format your data, but let's say that you need more control over your formatting, such highlighting your data in groups of 5. You can use the Conditional Formatting feature in Excel 2007 or 2010 to do so:
1.     Select the cells that you wish to format.
2.     Click the Conditional Formatting button in the Styles section of the Home ribbon, and then choose New Rule, as shown in Figure 4
Figure 4: Conditional Formatting appears on the Home tab of the ribbon.
 
3.     Select Use a Formula to Determine Which Cells to Format, and then enter this formula:
4.     Click the Format button to assign the formatting of your choice, and then click OK.
=MOD(CEILING(ROW(),5),2)=0
5.     As shown in Figure 5, alternating blocks of 5 rows will be highlighted.
Figure 5: Conditional formatting allows us to highlight data in blocks of 5 rows at a time.
 
Note: Use this formula with Conditional Formatting if you wish to highlight every other row:
=MOD(ROW(),2)
In Excel 2003 or earlier, select the cells you wish to highlight, choose Format, and then Conditional Formatting. Change Condition 1 to Formula is and use one of the formulas shown above.
Here's a quick rundown of how these formulas work:
·         ROW returns the current row number. This function allows you to optionally specify an address argument. However, in this case we're referring to the current row, so there's no need to provide a cell address.
·         CEILING rounds the row number up to the next multiple of 5 (or whatever number you specify). There are two arguments: number, and significance. We use ROW() to provide the number, and significance is the multiple that we want to round the row number to.
·         MOD returns the remainder from a division calculation, and has two arguments: number and divisor. In the case of the first formula, the results of the CEILING function are divided by 2. This means that rows 1 through 5 would round up to 5, and since 2 does not divide evenly into 5, MOD returns 1. Since we added =0 to the end of our formula, the Conditional Formatting feature in turn formats rows where MOD returns 0 instead of 1. Thus rows 1 through 5 don't get formatted, while 6 through 10 do, while 11 through 15 don't, and so on.



A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Aug 06

First Impressions of Excel 2010

.by David Ringstrom, CPA


As you may have heard, the next version of Microsoft's venerable Office suite recently entered “technical preview,” or public beta. While Excel 2007 introduced some dramatic changes, Excel 2010 seems to offer mostly refinements and only a few wholesale changes. Thus Excel 2007 users should have an easy time transitioning to Excel 2010, but anyone still using Excel 2003 or earlier will need to make the transition to the Ribbon-based user interface. Fortunately, this interactive guide from Microsoft will ease your pain.

Microsoft is slowly releasing information about the changes in Excel 2010, and so some new features aren't fully documented yet. I'll be posting in-depth articles about Excel 2010 in the coming months, but for now, where's what to expect when you first launch Excel 2010:
  • The big Office button in the left-hand corner has been replaced with a small green button, as shown in Figure 1. The resulting menu has also been reworked, as shown in Figure 2.


Figure 1: Presenting Excel 2010.

  • The Ribbon itself remains mostly unchanged, other than to introduce new Excel features and a new background look. However, you can now rework the Ribbon to suit your needs. This means you can add custom tabs or turn off any of the existing tabs, which allows you to customize Excel 2010 to meet your needs. Don't worry: it's easy to reset the Ribbon to its default state when necessary.
  • The Info tab shown in Figure 2 gives you a great deal of information about your document. Interestingly, the Info tab in Word 2010 lists the total editing time for the document, but Excel's Info tab does not.


Figure 2: The new Info tab provides statistics about your document.


Figure 3: Excel 2010 allows you to create in-cell charts known as Sparklines.

  • The Slicer is a new filtering feature provides a visual interface for filtering pivot table and other database data. Instead of using the traditional drop-down lists to limit the data shown in a pivot table, the new Slicer gives you a graphical mechanism to filter the data shown in your pivot table. Bill Jelen, aka Mr. Excel has created a three-minute video that demonstrates this feature.
  • Excel 2010 has a Screenshot/Screen Clipping feature that will help make it easier to document your spreadsheets by simplifying the screen capture process.
  • You'll have the ability to block users from opening or saving Excel files in certain data formats.
  • As shown in Figure 4, the Print command in Excel 2010 has been reworked to merge print preview and page setup choices into the print process.


Figure 4: Print, Preview, and certain Page Setup Elements have been merged into a single screen

  • If your computer reboots while you have an Excel document open, Excel 2010 automatically launches itself at start-up, and attempts to automatically recover the documents you were working on.
  • A new feature currently known as Project Gemini will reportedly allow Excel users to analyze millions of records from a SQL Server database in Excel. This feature was not included in the technical preview.
  • The right-click menu for worksheet cells contains new paste options, as shown in Figure 5.


Figure 5: New icons eliminate the need to go to the Paste Special dialog box for common tasks.

 

 

  • A new feature automatically saves a copy of your unsaved documents for up to 4 days. The caveat is that Excel has to create an AutoRecover copy first. However, if you inadvertently close without saving a document that you've been working on for 10 minutes or more, you may just be able to recover your work.
  • There are certainly other new features in Excel 2010, but the aforementioned list shows the items that have caught my attention thus far.  You can learn more by following these blogs:
  • Microsoft Excel Team Blog
  • Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering
And of course, don't miss Office 2010 The Movie.



A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Jun 18

Whither Conficker?

By David Ringstrom, CPA

 

It's only been a couple months since the Conficker virus completely dominated the media, yet there's been a deafening silence on this front since April 2. All of the hype would have had you believe that Conficker was set to wreak havoc on April 1, but that ominous Wednesday passed without incident, much like Y2K. However, this isn't to say that Conficker simply vanished, as innumerable computers are still infected by one of the five known variants of the virus.

Conficker exploits a vulnerability on Windows systems, and unlike many viruses, it's easy to determine if your computer has been affected:

  • Your antivirus or security suite suddenly is unable to download updates
  • You're unable to view one or more of the images on the Conficker Eye Chart



Guidance on removing Conficker and limiting your potential exposure is available from the United States Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). Do not rely on supposedly free Conficker removal tools unless provided by Microsoft or a major security vendor such as McAfee or Symantec.

Fortunately some folks are still tracking Conficker:

You can read more about the Conficker virus on Wikipedia, or peruse the comprehensive technical analysis of the virus provided by SRI International.

 

A previous version of this article first appeared 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

 

 

Apr 17

Tricks for hiding and unhiding Excel rows and columns

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Hiding and unhiding rows and columns are mundane tasks that many users take for granted. However, sometimes simple tasks can trip up Excel users, like unhiding just one row or column within a hidden set. Other users don't know simple keystroke commands that can streamline hiding and unhiding columns or rows. In this article, I'll explore these techniques as well as discuss two powerful alternatives to manually hide and unhide rows and columns. I'll also discuss how to re-enable an Excel keyboard shortcut that's disabled in any operating system subsequent to Windows XP.


Hiding Rows and Columns
Let's first explore the traditional approaches to hiding rows and columns. Going forward, I'll only explain rows – simply replace the word Row with Column in any menu commands that I describe if you want to hide or unhide columns. First, select the row or rows that you wish to hide or unhide, and then carry out these steps:
  • Excel 2007 and later: On the Home tab, choose Format in the Cells section of the ribbon, and then choose Hide & Unhide, and then either Hide Rows or Unhide Rows.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Format, Row, and then either Hide or Unhide.
Tip: Remember, to unhide rows, you must select rows on either side of the hidden set. If you're trying to unhide rows at the top of the worksheet, click on the first visible row, and then move your mouse up to the top of the screen.


Keyboard Shortcuts
Alternatively, you can select a row or rows, and then press Ctrl-9. To unhide rows, press Ctrl-Shift-9. For columns, use Ctrl-0 (that's a zero) or Ctrl-Shift-0, respectively. There's a catch with the latter shortcut, though. By default, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 use Ctrl-Shift-0 (zero) as a keyboard shortcut for changing the keyboard layout. This means that when you move from Windows XP to a newer version of Windows, Ctrl-Shift-0 no longer works in Excel unless you change an arcane Windows setting shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1: The Switch Keyboard Layout option in Windows Vista and later blocks Ctrl-Shift-0 for unhiding columns in Excel.


Windows 8:
  • Click on Language within the Control Panel.
  • Click Advanced Settings, and then click the Change Language Bar Hot Keys link.
  • Click Change Key Sequence, select Not Assigned in the Switch Keyboard Layout section, and then click OK as needed.
Windows Vista or Windows 7:
  • Click Region and Language within the Control Panel.
  • Choose the Keyboards and Languages tab, and then click Change Keyboards.
  • Click the Advanced Key Settings tab, and then click Change Key Sequence.
  • Select Not Assigned in the Switch Keyboard Layout section, and then click OK as needed.
Windows XP:
  • No Control Panel changes are necessary.
Unhide Selectively
Sometimes you may want to unhide just a single row or column. There are two ways to do so:
1. Press Ctrl-G to display the Go To window, type in the address of a cell in the row or column that you wish to unhide, and then click OK, as shown in Figure 2. Carry out the corresponding menu command or keyboard shortcut to unhide the row or column. You can also use menu commands to display the Go To dialog box:
  • Excel 2007 and later: Choose Find and Select on the Home tab, and then click Go To.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Edit and then Go To.
2. If you don't know the exact address of the cell you're looking for, press Ctrl-F to display the Find window and search for a word within the hidden column or row. As with the Go To command, Excel will select the hidden cell, which you can then unhide. You can also use menu commands to display the Find dialog box:
  • Excel 2007 and later: Choose Find and Select on the Home tab, and then click Find.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Edit, and then Find.
Figure 2: The Go To dialog box allows you to navigate to a hidden cell when you need to selectively unhide a row or column.


Group Rows or Columns
Excel's Group feature is an effective alternative to manually hide or unhide rows and columns. Select the rows or columns you wish to hide, and then carry out this command:
  • Excel 2007 or later: Click the Group icon in the Outline section of the Data ribbon.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Data, Group and Outline, and then Group.
As shown in Figure 3, Excel adds a button outside the worksheet frame that you can use to toggle the hidden or visible status of rows or columns. To remove grouping, select the group, and then issue the corresponding Ungroup command, which is adjacent to the Group commands described above.
Figure 3: The Group feature allows you to expand or collapse a set of rows or columns with a single mouse click.


Custom Views
Many Excel users overlook the Custom Views feature, which among other things, allows you to save sets of hidden rows or columns. Before you start hiding rows or columns, first create a view that displays the entire worksheet:
  • Excel 2007 and later: Choose Custom Views in the Workbook Views section of the View ribbon. Click Add, and then assign a name, such as All Columns. Make sure that Hidden Row, Columns, and Filter Settings is selected, and then click OK.
  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose View, and then Custom Views. From there, the commands are the same as described in Excel 2007.
Next, hide rows and/or columns as desired, and then save a second custom view. You can now toggle between views as needed. Issue the Custom Views command, select a view from the list, and then click View.


A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Apr 17

Tricks for opening and closing multiple Excel files

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


From time to time you may find yourself immersed in a large project that involves several related Excel workbooks. In such cases it can be tedious to manually open each Excel file when you need everything available at once. Excel has long had a helpful feature that is hidden in plain sight: the Save Workspace command. This command creates a bookmark file with an .XLW extension that you can use to automatically open a group of related spreadsheets. In this article I'll explain Excel's Workspace feature, as well as how to close all open worksheets at once while still leaving Excel open.

Workspace feature

A workspace is comprised of whatever spreadsheets are open at the time that you issue the Save Workspace command:

  • Excel 2007: Choose Save Workspace in the Window section of the View ribbon.
  • Excel 2003 or earlier: Choose Save Workspace on the File menu.

In either case, after making the menu choice, you're presented with a traditional Save dialog box from which you can choose where to save your workspace file. Excel 2007 will prompt you to save each file within the workspace, while Excel 2003 and earlier won't prompt you until you close an individual file within the workspace.

To reopen your workspace, you can either choose the .XLW file from your Recently Used file list, or open the file manually:

  • Excel 2007: Click the Office button, choose Open, and then select the .XLW file.
  • Excel 2003 or earlier: Choose File, Open, and then select the .XLW file.

You can further refine your search in any version of Excel. To do so, choose Workspaces (.XLW) from the Files of Type list, as shown in Figure 1.

 

 

Figure 1: Workspaces (.XLW files) display in the list of available files when you issue the Open command, but you can also filter the list to only show Workspace files.

Excel 2007 Trick: Click the pushpin next to your .XLW file to lock your workspace onto the Recently Used File List. It may shift down the list as you open other spreadsheets, but it won't scroll off the list as long as its pushpin is depressed.

 

 

Figure 2: Click the pushpin to lock a workspace onto your Excel 2007 Recently Used File List.

Closing All Files at Once

Sometimes during the day you need to clear the decks of all open files, but leave Excel open. You can certainly close each file individually, but versions through and including Excel 2003 had a far easier way to perform this task: Hold down the Shift command before you click on the File menu. As shown in Figure 3, the Close command changes to Close All, which enables you to close all open workbooks at once. Although the Shift key trick doesn't work in Excel 2007, you can actually create your own custom shortcut:

  • Right-click anywhere on the Excel 2007 ribbon, and then choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.
  • Choose Commands Not in the Ribbon from the Choose Commands From List, and then add Close All to your Quick Access toolbar.
  • Optionally move the Close All command to the top of your Quick Access Toolbar list, as shown in Figure 4, and then click OK.

If you moved the Close All command to the top of your list, you can now press Alt-1 to issue the Close All command whenever you wish. As shown in Figure 5, the shortcut code for every button on the Excel 2007 interface is revealed when you press the Alt key.

 

 

Figure 3: Hold down the shift key before you choose the File menu in Excel 2003 or earlier to display the Close All command.

 

 

 

Figure 4: You can add a Close All command to your Excel 2007 Quick Access Toolbar.

 

 

 

Figure 5: Shortcut keys for every button on the Excel 2007 ribbon appear when you press the Alt key once.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Apr 17

Buried gold: Excel’s Form command

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Many users are not aware that Excel has long had a feature that enables you to browse through a table of data one record at a time. As shown in Figure 1, the Form command provides an easy way to navigate through a table of data. This command is easy to access in Excel 2003 and earlier versions, but is deeply buried in Excel 2007. In this article I'll show you how to use the Form command to make quick work of reviewing a list of records.


Figure 1: The Form command allows you to navigate through a table of records.


Enable the Form command

It's easy to use the Form command in Excel 2003 or earlier versions: Select a single cell within a table of data, choose Data, and then Form. While many Excel 2007 users will simply think that the Form command is no longer
available, you can easily uncover it:

  • Right-click anywhere on the Ribbon and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.
  • Choose Commands Not In the Ribbon, and then scroll down to Form, as shown in Figure 2, or press the letter F four times after you click on.
  • Click the Add button, and then click OK.

As shown in Figure 3, you can now click the Form button on the Quick Access toolbar to display the Form window shown in Figure 1.




Figure 2: You must manually add the Form command to your Quick Access toolbar in Excel 2007.




Figure 3: The Form command is now available on the Quick Access Toolbar.
As shown in Figure 1, the Form window has several buttons:


  • New: This button allows you to add a new record to the table. Complete the input fields, and then click New again to add a new record to the bottom of your list.
  • Delete: This button deletes the record from the list, and cannot be undone.
  • Restore: If you've made edits to a record within the Form window, the Restore button will undo your changes. Otherwise your changes are automatically saved when you move to a new record.
  • Find Prev: This allows you to navigate to the previous record in the list.
  • Find Next: This allows you to navigate to the next record on the list.
  • Criteria: You can filter your list to see just certain records, such as the Atlanta region. Click Criteria, add criteria to the corresponding fields, and then click Form to view only records that meet the specified criteria. To eliminate criteria, click the Criteria button, click Clear, and then Form.
  • Close: Closes the Form window.

Criteria trick: You can use wild cards, like *es to search just for fruit that ends in “es”, like apples, oranges, and mixed berries. You can also use question marks to mask selected characters, like ?o?th GA to view North GA and South GA at the same time, but exclude Mid GA.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Apr 17

Managing Excel Add-Ins

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Add-ins are programs that plug-in into Microsoft Excel to add additional functionality. Some add-ins expand Excel's core functionality, while others allow third-party products to add features to Excel's environment. In this article I'll discuss how to enable some of Excel's hidden features, as well as give you some pointers on what to do when third-party add-ins vanish from Excel.

Hidden Features
Excel ships with several add-ins that you can manually enable. Some of these include:

It's easy to enable these add-ins:

  • Excel 2007: Click the Office button, choose Excel Options, and then click Add-Ins. Choose Excel Add-Ins from the Manage section at the bottom of the Add-Ins window as shown in Figure 1, and then click Go. As shown in Figure 2, select any add-ins that you wish to include.

Figure 1: Use the Manage section to work with Add-ins in Excel 2007.

 

 

 

Figure 2: You're just a few mouse clicks away from enabling several hidden Excel features.

 

 

 

  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Tools, Add-Ins, and then select any add-ins you wish to enable, as shown in Figure 2.

In other cases, third-party applications may automatically install add-ins in Excel. For instance, Adobe Acrobat often adds a custom menu or toolbar in Excel. Some of my clients work in the financial industry and rely on add-ins from Bloomberg or Reuters that enable users to return prices and other data on financial products directly into an Excel spreadsheet. Most add-ins are well-behaved, and you may tend to take them for granted — until the day that you launch Excel and find that your add-in functionality has vanished. Much like a mother bear with cubs, Excel is very protective of its operating environment. If Excel determines — rightly or wrongly — that an add-in has caused an Excel crash, the add-in is benched and put on the disabled list. Excel will generally warn you in such cases, but in the case of a shared or public computer, someone else may choose to disable the add-in without you knowing. In such cases, the menu or toolbar that the add-in provides simply vanishes. Fortunately, it's easy to re-enable the add-ins if you know where to look:

 

 

  • Excel 2007: Click the Office button, choose Excel Options, and then click Add-Ins. Choose Disabled Add-Ins from the Manage section at the bottom of the Add-Ins window (shown in Figure 1), and then click Go. As shown in Figure 3, any disabled add-ins will appear on the Disabled Items list. You can enable such items one at a time, and then click Close.

 

 

Figure 3: Use this window to re-enable disabled Excel add-ins.
 

 

  • Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Help, and then About Microsoft Office Excel. Click the Disabled Items button shown in Figure 4 to display the Disabled Items window shown in Figure 3.

 

 

 

Figure 4: The Disabled Items button is fairly well hidden in Excel 2003 and earlier.

 

 

Excel 2007 tip: Although most add-ins have a .XLA extension, others are known as COM add-ins, and don't appear in the Add-Ins list shown in Figure 2. Excel 2007 users can easily disable unwanted COM add-ins: Click the Office button, choose Excel Options, and then click Add-Ins. Choose COM Add-Ins from the Manage section at the bottom of the Add-Ins window as shown in Figure 1, and then click Go. As shown in Figure 5, you can then add or remove COM add-ins as desired. Users of earlier versions of Excel can use the free OfficeIns tool to manage add-ins.

 

 

 

Figure 5: Excel 2007 makes it easy to manage COM add-ins like Google DeskTop Office.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

 

Apr 17

Three Excel menus you may have overlooked

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Sheet Navigation

Everyone is familiar with using the arrow buttons in the lower left-hand corner of the Excel screen to push worksheet tabs back and forth across the screen. However, try right-clicking on these buttons instead, and you'll see a menu similar to Figure 1. Simply click on a sheet name to instantly activate that worksheet.

 

 

Figure 1: Many Excel users don't know that you can right-click on the navigation arrows.


Move Rows or Columns

Sometimes you need to rearrange columns or rows on your worksheet. Many users resort to inserting new, blank columns or rows, cutting the data to be moved, and then pasting it into the new location. Instead, there are two faster ways rearrange your worksheet:
 

  • Select the columns or rows you wish to move
  • Use your right mouse button to grab the border of your selection, and then move the columns or rows to the new location.
  • When you release your mouse, the menu shown in Figure 2 will appear. If you forget and use your left mouse button, you'll encounter a different prompt. Press Escape and then try again.

Figure 2: This hidden menu appears when you use the right-mouse button to drag a selection of cells.
Of course if you're just repositioning rows, you can bypass this menu entirely: simply hold down the Shift key while you move the columns or rows into their new position.


Hide and Unhide Worksheets

Most Excel 2007 users know that it's possible to hide or unhide worksheets:
 

  • Choose the Format icon in the Cells section of the Home menu
  • Choose Hide & Unhide
  • Choose Hide Sheet or Unhide Sheet.

However, there's an even easier way: As shown in Figure 3, right-click on a worksheet tab, and then choose Hide. You can also right-click on any worksheet tab and choose Unhide to display the Unhide Sheet dialog box. Although you can hide multiple worksheets at once — hold down the Ctrl key as you click on each worksheet, and then issue the Hide command — you must still unhide sheets one at a time. Anyone using Excel 2003 or earlier won't have this option and instead must choose Format, Sheet, and Hide or Unhide. In addition, you'll notice a new Protect Sheet command, which toggles to Unprotect Sheet when the worksheet is protected.

 

Figure 3: Excel 2007 has Hide, Unhide, and Protect Sheet commands on the worksheet menu.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

 

Apr 17

Introducing the AccountingWEBinar Series

AccountingWEB is pleased to announce a series of live webinars aimed squarely at the needs of CPAs in public and private practice. This wide-ranging series will cover the following topics:
•Microsoft Excel
•Microsoft Outlook
•Microsoft Word
•Microsoft Access
•Intuit QuickBooks
•Sage Peachtree Accounting
•XML/XBRL

Click here to read the full text of the article at AccountingWEB.com.

Mar 13

Provisioning your home accounting office

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


As the economy continues to contract, more and more accountants are considering striking out on their own. A benefit to providing accounting services is that you can often ease your way into your own business, as long as you don't run afoul of any non-compete agreements with your primary employer. I'm sure you've read a million articles about how to establish a separate workspace that's all your own and how to organize your files, so instead I'm going to focus on elements of my own home office that I've found particularly effective.

Computer – I've always used a laptop as my primary machine, and I always purchase machines that can be snapped into a docking station, also commonly referred to as a port replicator. Doing so ensures that I don't have to take my power cord out of my bag, nor do I have to touch any other cables. If you choose a laptop, it's simple to connect an external monitor and expand your desktop across both monitors. I've gone a step further, and use Toshiba's DynaDock to have three screens. This allows me to have a dedicated e-mail monitor, as well as two others for whatever project I'm working on.

Printer – Laser printers offer far lower cost-per-page and crisper output. Indeed, if you're able to put your hands on a second-hand HP LaserJet IV or equivalent, you'll have a workhorse of a printer that will last for years — my LaserJet survived a lightning strike that took out all other equipment around it.

Scanner – I consider a scanner to be like a chainsaw…I don't use it very often, but when I need it, nothing else will do.

Shredder – Keep your shredder within an arms length of your desk so that you can immediately dispose of unneeded documents. Also, make sure to buy a heavy-duty version, as few things are more frustrating than trying to unjam a balky shredder, as you'll invariably end up with confetti on the floor.

Fax machine – Although I rarely use it, I keep a fax machine around for sending outgoing faxes. For years I've relied on the eFax service for incoming documents. Not only do my faxes appear in my inbox, my employees get copied on faxes automatically so I never have to forward a fax on.

eFax tip: If you already use eFax, be sure to log into the control panel and change the setting so that your faxes arrive as PDFs, instead of the proprietary eFax format. This can be a huge timesaver.

Separate telephone line with a headset – I've used my cell phone as my office number, which freed me up from checking two voice mailboxes. However, since I often have to walk outside to get a clear signal, I pay for a basic, no-frills landline that I use with a headset. Internet-based phone service, often referred to as VOIP, is an obvious alternative.

Back-up – I recommend a four-pronged approach:

  1. I back up highly critical data like my own accounting records, on flash drives. I recommend alternating between at least two.
  2. I also alternate backing up my entire hard drive between two external hard drives. I try to keep one drive as a far away from my desk as possible in the event of fire or other disaster. I use a program called SmartSync Pro  to back-up my data, but many other alternatives are available.
  3. I also recommend using an online back-up service like Carbonite, Jungle Disk, or other services.
  4. I also use the free Windows Live Sync service to automatically replicate files from my primary computer onto a secondary computer. At one point my laptop hard drive crashed, but everything I was working on was immediately available for use on the second computer.

Accounting Software – You could purchase retail versions of these programs, but consider these respective professional accountant programs instead:

  1. Intuit ProAdvisor
  2. Sage Accountant's Network
  3. Microsoft Professional Accountant's Network

Tip: Not only is Microsoft's program free, it also qualifies you to apply for a Microsoft ActionPack subscription, which provides a staggering amount of Microsoft software for just a few hundred dollars — think 10 Office 2007 Enterprise licenses, 10 Office 2003 Professional licenses, and on and on.

Tax Preparation Software – Tax preparers should consider a package such as ATX 1040, which starts at $410/year. You'll be able to do far more with it than consumer-grade products like TurboTax or TaxCut.

Remote access – Many folks are aware of GoToMyPC [12], but there are other players, like LogMeIn, that provide free or low-cost remote access to your clients' computers. This allows you to assist clients directly during the business day, or use their computers to carry out work after hours.

Screen capture program – As a freelance writer, SnagIt is an indispensible tool, but I often use it for my clients, too. When someone e-mails me a question about Excel, Peachtree, or QuickBooks, I'll often make a quick screen capture of the window in question, drop a word balloon with some text on the image, and e-mail it on. With regard to tech support, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Security Software – In the good old days security software pretty much meant anti-virus protection, but these days you must now have firewall, anti-malware, and even encryption. Symantec and Trend Micro, among others, offer Internet security packages. Encryption is easier than you might think, as Jeff Cherrington, vice president of product management for PKWARE notes: “A home worker should be aware that it is critical to consider measures above and beyond firewalls and virus protection software to ensure security of sensitive data. Security that remains with data is needed now more than ever as more sophisticated means of cyber threats and identity theft emerge. Sensitive business or customer information is vulnerable to compromise as it travels across home wireless networks and over the Internet or as it is stored on computers, DVDs, or USB drives. Many home workers are familiar with using .zip to compress documents. Now, it is possible to .zip and encrypt all types of data such as e-mail, e-mail attachments, pdf files, .jpg files, and even Microsoft Office documents. The information assets are sealed in secured virtual containers while the data is in transit or is being stored. It is even possible to protect files that are sent or stored on such email and storage services offered by AOL, Yahoo, or Google, provided that the files are zipped and encrypted before they are sent or stored. Home workers wishing to send large e-mail attachments will be pleased to learn that usage of .zip compression together with encryption helps to avoid the problem of exceeding mail size limits that often result in bounce back messages or delays in getting necessary information to business contacts. Zipping and encrypting sensitive data renders it useless to cyber criminals or thieves, while enabling home workers to securely engage in necessary business interactions. SecureZIP enables users to secure files and folders with strong passphrase or digital certificate-based encryption. It also supports digital signatures to ensure data integrity SecureZIP saves and sends files securely directly from Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. PKWAREs SecureZIP is available for a 30-day trial at www.pkware.com.”

 

A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Feb 06

Add contacts or meetings to Contact Manager or CRM with two keystrokes

Product review by David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Accountants of a certain age may remember a television show in which contestants would bid on how few notes they'd need to hear to identify an unidentified song. However, instead of saying, “Tom, I can name that tune in 5 notes,” you may find yourself thinking, “I can add a new contact to Outlook with just two keystrokes!” The key is a clever program called Anagam that enables you to quickly add onscreen information — without manual transcription — into your contact manager or CRM.

Anagram unobtrusively resides in the taskbar area of your Windows screen, as shown in Figure 1. A tip appears when you hover over the icon to remind you of the shortcut key to use. Anagram works with these applications:

 

  • Outlook 
  • Palm Desktop 
  • Gmail & Google Calendar 
  • Jigsaw 
  • Salesforce 
  • Netsuite 
  • Tablet PC

 

 

Figure 1: Anagram resides in the Windows Taskbar, and is always available.

The program is simple to use:

1. Select the text that you wish to capture, as shown in Figure 2. In this case I've selected text from the Contact page of AccountingWEB.

 

 

Figure 2: Select the text that you wish to capture.

2. Press F12 (or configure Anagram to use a different shortcut key). As shown in Figures 3 and 4, Anagram instantly parses the text into address fields.

 

 

Figure 3: Anagram parses text that you select into discrete contact fields.

 

 

Figure 4: Addresses are instantly dispersed into the proper fields.

3. Now press the Enter key to save the record to your contact manager or CRM software. That's all there is to it!

As shown in Figure 4, you can choose to rescan text as a to do (task item), event (calendar item), or memo. In addition, the captured text appears in a separate window, as shown in Figure 5, so you can make any edits you choose, and then scan the information again.

 

 

Figure 5: You can edit the captured text, and then rescan it, or simply convert the information to another type.

Many professionals incorporate their contact information into an e-mail signature block, so it's a snap for me to add new contacts to my address book. As shown above, you can also capture text from a web site, or pretty much anywhere on your screen. Keep in mind that Anagram requires selectable text, so it can't scan pictures of text.

Pricing

Anagram is free for Gmail/Google Calendar, and Jigsaw. Outlook and Palm Desktop users pay a one-time $34.95 charge, while SalesForce and NetSuite users pay $74.95/year. Volume discounts are available, and you can try Anagram free for 45 days.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Feb 03

Free Microsoft Excel-based 1040 form available

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA



Just in time for tax season, Glenn Reeves of Burlington, Kansas has created a free Microsoft Excel-based version of the 2008 U.S. Individual Tax Return, commonly known as Form 1040. The spreadsheet includes both pages of Form 1040, as well as these supplemental schedules:

 

  • Schedule A – Itemized Deductions
  • Schedule B – Ordinary Interest and Ordinary Dividends
  • Schedule C – Profit or Loss from Business
  • Schedule D – Capital Gains and Losses, along with its worksheet
  • Schedule SE – Self-Employment Tax
  • Form 2441 – Childcare and Dependent Care Expenses
  • Form 6251 – Alternative Minimum Tax – Individuals

The spreadsheet also includes several worksheets:

  • Line 10 – State and Local Tax Refund Worksheet
  • Lines 16a and 16b – Simplified Method Worksheet taxable annuities and pension benefits
  • Lines 20a and 20b – Social Security Benefits Worksheet
  • Line 32 – IRA Deduction Worksheet
  • Line 42 – Deductions for Exemptions Worksheet
  • Line 44 – Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet
  • Line 52 – Child Tax Credit Worksheet
  • Lines 64a and 64b – Earned Income Credit (EIC)

Six additional worksheets round out the tool:

  • W-2 input forms that support up to 4 employers for each spouse
  • 1099-R Retirement input forms for up to 4 payers for each spouse
  • SSA-1099 input form to record Social Security Benefits
  • A tax table
  • Earned Income Credit table
  • Change log that records revisions to the spreadsheet

All of the worksheets are password-protected, and most of the underlying formulas are hidden, but you're free to add new worksheets to the file, or create links to other workbooks. As you can see in Figure 1, the form exactly mirrors the official IRS format. The protection also means you can't add comments to cells within the forms, or make notes out to the right.

 

 

Figure 1: Glenn Reeves created an Excel-based version of IRS Form 1040

The spreadsheet also includes some basic error-checking features, as shown in Figure 2, as well as hints, as shown in Figure 3.

 

 

Figure 2: The spreadsheet contains basic error-checking prompts.

 

 

Figure 3: In some cases the spreadsheet offers helpful tax-planning hints.

The spreadsheet's author clearly states that the spreadsheet is available for free, but he does accept appreciation contributions. As you might expect for someone so intimately familiar with U.S. tax law, Mr. Reeves will report all contributions as income, but will also donate 10 percent of any proceeds to his church.

This free spreadsheet enables just about anyone to use Microsoft Excel to prepare and print their entire 1040 return. Along with the actual forms, the spreadsheet includes some IRS documentation, as well as links to download official IRS forms and instructions. Excel-based versions of Form 1040 are available for all years from 1996 through 2008. In addition, the 2008 format is also available in Open Document Format, which is compatible with the free Open Office suite.

The spreadsheet is available at www.excel1040.com.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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

Jan 07

Excel text transformation tricks

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


Data arrives on your desk from multiple sources, and in many cases it's not quite in the format that you need. For instance, a user may have left the CAPS LOCK on while typing in a series of addresses. Or you've exported data from a program that pads fields with spaces at the beginning or end. Fortunately, there's no need to retype the list. Excel offers four easy-to-use functions that can quickly transform data into just the format that you need.

UPPER – As shown in Figure 1, this function transforms text into all upper case, so the phrase Old McDonald's Farm becomes OLD MCDONALD'S FARM. This function only has one argument, so you simply type =UPPER(x), where x is a cell that contains text you wish to convert.

LOWER – This function transforms text into all lower case letters, so Old McDonald's Farm becomes old mcdonald's farm. As with the UPPER function, you simply use the form =LOWER(x), where x is a cell that you wish to convert to lower case.

PROPER – This function capitalizes the first letter of each word, so the phrase old mcdonald's farm becomes Old Mcdonald'S Farm. This function takes the same form as the other functions: =PROPER(x), where x is the cell to convert. However, as you can see in Figure 1, PROPER can present problems in some cases:

 

  • The first D in McDonald's doesn't get capitalized.
  • The S in McDonald's is capitalized — in addition to capitalizing the first letter of a word, PROPER also capitalizes the next letter after an apostrophe or single quote.
  • Other items to look for are acronyms or initials, where ABC COMPANY would become Abc Company or BOB'S TV SERVICE would become Bob'S TV Service

You'll have to manually clear up problems like ABC or TV being converted to Abc and Tv, but you can use Excel's Replace function to clear up other problems, as I'll explain in a moment.

TRIM – Sometimes you'll inherit data that has extraneous spaces at the beginning, middle, or end of the string, such as ” Old McDonald's Farm”. In such cases you can use the TRIM function to strip out all extraneous spaces — the function automatically keeps one space between each word. The function takes the form =TRIM(x) where x is a cell reference.

Figure 1: These four functions can quickly transform text without retyping.

Expert tip: Sometimes it's helpful to have white space that the start of certain words, as shown in Figure 2. Rather than manually enter spaces at the start of cells A3 through A5, try this instead:

 

  1. Press Ctrl-1 to display the Format Cells dialog box.
  2. Click on the Alignment tab, and set the Indent field to 1 or 2.
  3. Click OK and your text will automatically indented, as shown in Figure 3.
  4. You can remove all of the indenting at any time by changing the Indent back to 0.

Figure 2: Use the Indent setting to move text to the right without using the spacebar.

Figure 3: Set the Indent level to 1 or 2 to create a slight indent.

 

Convert Formulas to Values

Typically when you use these functions you'll have data in one column, such as column A in Figure 1. You'll enter the formula in column B, and then copy it down the length of your list. Presto, your list is transformed, but don't rush off and delete column A just yet. You must first copy the formulas in column B to the clipboard, and then use the Paste Special command to convert the formulas to values:

 

  1. Copy the formulas to the clipboard.
  2. Right-click on the first cell that you copied, and then choose Paste Special.
  3. As shown in Figure 4, you can double-click on the word Values, or click once on Values and then click OK.

At this point you can delete the data in column A, because your converted data is in column B as text rather than formulas that refer to column A. If you forget to convert the formulas in column B to values before you delete column A, then you'll end up with a series of #REF! errors. Simply press Ctrl-Z to undo the column deletion, and then carry out the Paste Special Values command.

Figure 4: The Paste Special Values command converts formulas to text.

 

A PROPER Clean-up

Once you've converted your formulas to values, you can use the Replace function to resolve problems like that pesky ‘S in McDonald'S. To do so, press Ctrl-H to display the Replace dialog box. As shown in Figure 5, enter ‘S in the Find field, and ‘s in the Replace With field. Repeat this process for any other issues, like replacing Mcd with McD, Tv with TV, and so on.
Figure 5: Use the Replace command to quickly clean up capitalization problems that PROPER introduces.


A previous version of this article first appeared 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

 

Jan 07

Excel 2007: Five ways to streamline Excel’s user interface

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA


It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day use of Excel 2007 and overlook minor tweaks that can make a significant difference in your use of Excel. In this article I'll review five of my favorite Excel 2007 tricks. Most involve customizing the user interface so that I can speed through my work without hitting unnecessary bumps:

1. Extend your recently used file list
By default Excel shows the 17 most recent files that you've opened, but as shown in Figure 1, you can expand this to a maximum of 50:

 

  • a. Click the Office button, and then click Excel Options.
  • b. Choose Advanced, and then scroll down to the Display section.
  • c. Change the Show This Number of Recent Documents from 17 to a maximum of 50.

Figure 1: You can expand the number of recent documents that appear when click the Office button.

 

Expert tip: You can pin files permanently to the Recent Documents menu: Click the pushpin that appears to the right of the file name. Your document may shift further down the list over time, but will always remain on the Recent Documents menu.

2. Utilize the Places Bar

As shown in Figure 2, the Places Bar is the list of icons on the left-hand side of the Office dialog boxes. You can place shortcuts to frequently used folders here:

 

  • a. Click once on the desired folder, so that the folder name becomes highlighted. Be sure not to drill down inside the folder, but rather just click once on its name.
  • b. Right-click in the Places Bar and choose Add.

You can right-click on an item in the Places bar and move it up or down one position at a time. This menu also allows you to remove items you've added to the Places Bar, but you cannot remove the default locations like My Recent Documents, My Documents, and so on.

Figure 2: The Places Bar can give you once-click access to widely-scattered folders.

3. Disable the Paste/Insert Icons

You may have noticed the little clipboard icon, shown in Figure 3, that appears when you paste data into a worksheet. This little icon makes a Paste Options menu available, from which you can make changes to how your data pasted on the worksheet. Some folks may find this helpful, but many find it annoying. Fortunately it's easy to eliminate these prompts:

 

  • a. Click the Office button, and then choose Excel Options.
  • b. As shown in Figure 4, choose Advanced, and then clear the check boxes for Show Paste Options Buttons and Show Insert Options Buttons in the Cut, Copy, and Paste section.

Figure 3: The Paste Options button can be disabled.

Figure 4: Clear the checkboxes shown to disable the Paste and Insert Options buttons.

4. Eliminate the Zoom Slider

As shown in Figure 5, the Zoom Slider appears in the lower right-hand corner of your Excel screen. It's easy to accidentally hit this when you're scrolling up and down or right and left. If you click the Zoom Slider, then suddenly your Excel spreadsheet may zoom in or out dramatically, leaving you to reset it again. The Zoom section of the View tab makes it easy to change the size of your text, so you may wish to turn the zoom slider off:

 

  • a. Right-click anywhere on the Status bar at the bottom of your screen.
  • b. Clear the checkbox for Zoom Slider.

Figure 5: Convenience aside, the Zoom Slider makes it easy to inadvertently resize your screen view.

5. Eliminate extraneous worksheets

By default Excel 2007 workbook includes three worksheets, but you often only need one or two tabs. Further, Excel 2007 includes a new Insert Worksheet tab, shown in Figure 6, which allows you to add a new worksheet with just one click. Thus it's helpful to always start with a single worksheet and then add new sheets as you need them. Here's how to change the default from 3 to 1:

 

  • a. Click the Office button, and then choose Excel Options.
  • b. As shown in Figure 7, change the Include This Many Sheets setting to 1.

Figure 6: The Insert Worksheet button makes it easy to add new sheets on the fly.

Figure 7: You can change the default number of worksheets from 3 to 1.

 
A previous version of this article first appeared 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