When running a business, keeping on top of your cash flow by keeping track of your customer’s payments is a number one priority. Because otherwise your business loses money and invoices go unpaid and lost.

This will in turn have a devastating effect on the health of your business because whilst small businesses can survive for a short time without sales or profits, if there is no cash flow then the business will die.

To keep track of the invoices of your customers there is software available out there such as SAGE. It is highly likely that most big businesses will already be using this or has an existing system in place.

But what if you are only a small business? The cost of the software can be expensive. Did you know that you can also use Microsoft Excel to do this task?

That’s right; Excel can serve as an effective tool to manage your finances. You can create your own simple template noting all your invoices and their due dates. Alternatively you can download a correct template such as this Small Business Cash Flow Projection Template from Microsoft.

Don’t let your business fail just because of poor handling of finances. Make the most of the tools at your disposal and watch your business flourish.

If you would to know more ways in which Excel can help you, take a look at our Excel Training Courses.

Want to know more how Microsoft Excel can help you? Click on Microsoft Excel Articles. 

When I first time saw Microsoft Excel 2007 I thought I have a new annoying task to do – to learn excel. But after some playing with it I’ve realised how much I like this software. As time has gone by I prefer it. Here are 5 reasons why I prefer Excel 2007 to previous versions.

New level of limits

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 supports 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns. The number of rows has increased from roughly 65536 to 1.1 million; the number of columns has increased from 256 to over 16385! Columns now end at XFD instead of IV.

Office Excel 2007 also supports up to 16 million colours, which enhance visual appearance of graphic elements.

Improved sorting and filtering

Excel has always included sorting and filtering tools. With Excel 2007, the sorting and filtering options have been expanded. For example, you can now sort data by colour or by up to 64 levels (previously, you were limited to 3 levels).

Data can be filtered by colour or by dates. The AutoFilter dropdown list now displays more than 1000 items to choose from and multiple items to filter are available. Filtering capabilities can also be applied to data in PivotTables.

Powerful data visualisation tool

Do you need to highlight data when you are over or under budget or want to draw attention to the important data from a huge list?

With enhanced conditional formatting features you can highlight trends in your data, find the highest and lowest data, find exceptions and annotate data into categories. Using colour scales, data bars and performance indication icons will help you to achieve this.

Easy to use PivotTables and Pivot Charts

No need anymore to drag data into drop zones, just select the fields that you want to see in a new PivotTable field list.

And after you’ve created a PivotTables enjoy easy sorting and filtering data within PivotTable data or apply conditional formatting.

PivotCharts are also much easier to create than before. The chart formatting that you apply will be maintained when you make changes to the PivotChart, which is a significant improvement from previous versions of Excel.

New Functions are added

Microsoft Excel 2007 has 343 functions with 51 new functions. New functions mainly are within 2 new categories – Engineering (39 functions) and Cube (7 functions). The remaining five are IFRROR, AVERAGEIF, AVERAGEIFS, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS

So, really Excel 2007 is the must to upgrade for everyone using Excel. And you know that Excel training will help you to learn those tricks to make your business life easier.

Want to know more how Microsoft Excel can help you? Click on Microsoft Excel Articles.

In Why to Use Microsoft Office Diagnostics we discussed the benefits and diagnostics options available. Here we are going to discuss how to use the diagnostics.

Before you start the diagnostics:

• Run the diagnostics when you do not need to use your computer
• Make sure you are connected to the Internet
• Close other programmes
• Make sure you have Microsoft Office installation disk in case there are problems and your program will need an access to the disk to repair

If Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access are still working then to start the Microsoft Office Diagnostics follow the steps:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options (or Excel Options or PowerPoint Options or Access Options)
2. Click Resources
3. Click the Diagnose button
4. Click Continue, and then click Run Diagnostics.

If InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Project, SharePoint Designer, or Visio are still working then to start the Microsoft Office Diagnostics follow the steps

1. On the Help menu, click Office Diagnostics.
2. Click Continue, and then click Start Diagnostics.

If any of the above programmes has crashed so badly that they not start, you can run Office Diagnostics from the Start menu.

1. In Windows, click the Start button
2. Point to All Programs, then to Microsoft Office and then to Microsoft Office Tools
3. Select Microsoft Office Diagnostics

To check which tests are available read Tips and Tricks: Microsoft Office 2007 – Why Use Microsoft Office Diagnostics?

Want more tips? Click on Microsoft Tips & Tricks

It can’t make a rabbit appear out of a hat or do crafty card tricks. But Microsoft Excel really can work wonders with your business inventory. Thanks to its (almost) magical powers, you’ll soon have all kinds of admin and management tasks covered. Yes, you know about Excel, you know it comes as standard with the Microsoft Office Suite and yes – you thought it was mostly for adding things up. But did you know that with Microsoft Excel training, you could be getting this supersmart software to boost the productivity and efficiency of your business?

Your magic wand

Work schedules, timesheets, stock levels, sales figures…have you ever wondered if there’s an easier way to keep tabs on them? On return from some targeted Microsoft Excel training you could be on your way to waving a magic wand over all of them! Excel lets you get truly inventive with your inventory. With MS Excel you can create and edit your very own spreadsheets for budget keeping, for inventory control and management, for creating customer contact lists, for staff attendance, and much more.

More power to you

Excel’s magic goes even further – putting you in charge of your inventory facts and figures. Its mathematical abilities can’t turn you into Carol Vorderman, but they will give you control over the most complex of calculations. Excel’s formulas are one of its most versatile features. Get the formula in place and it will allow you to keep control of everyday office figures right through to complex calculations for high-end business projections. The most magical thing, of course, is that once you’ve set up your formulas, Excel does all the work for you. The right kind of MS Excel training could put all this power at your fingertips.

Wizards on hand

Excel is packed full of clever little wizards to help you get all kinds of business tasks done. With just a short Microsoft Excel training course you could be on your way to managing many areas of your inventory – and your business – more efficiently. Excel allows you to create your very own database to suit your customer base, your stock and your schedules. One example is when a customer phones in and asks for a part number. You need to find out straight away if the product is available and in what quantity. With just a short MS Excel training course at intermediate level you‘d have the know how to use Hlookup and Vlookup functions and get the job done ASAP!

Excel makes your job easier to do and can even free up some of your time. Now that really is magic.

Bring some Excel magic to your business with an Infero training course at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels. As well as affordable IT and business training, we also offer helpful, no-obligation advice on your training options (and information about training grants of up to £1000)! Get in touch now.

Microsoft Excel – it’s just spreadsheets and formulas, right? Wrong – there’s much more to this super-smart Microsoft programme. With the right training you could get to know Microsoft Excel’s best-kept secret and be well on your way to making the most of your business information.

You may already know that Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that allows you to perform anything from basic mathematical computations to tasks involving massive amounts of data. But did you also realise that a training course could give you the tricks, tools and tips to really power up your business information? You’ll soon be able to create highly interactive spreadsheets that update as and when you add information – without having to become an expert in computer programming!

They may sound rather serious, but Excel Formulas and Functions can seriously liven up your business information. It’s time to think big. Very big. You can work with huge amounts of data, because Office Excel 2007 supports spreadsheets of up to 1 million rows by 16,000 columns! It’s better as well as bigger – Office Excel 2007 allows even faster calculation of formula-intense spreadsheets.

Imagine having to manually perform calculations on a worksheet that contains huge volumes of data. It’s dull, time consuming – with plenty of scope for human error. Cut out the complex manual calculations and use Formulas and Functions to quickly perform calculations on large data sets. Fast, efficient and free of headaches!

Monthly profits…business budgets…sales figures – whatever information you need to manage, you’ll find Excel is flexible enough to adapt.  Excel offers 10 choices of functions – from nice and simple like Summary to more complex functions like calculating financial data. You can even calculate data across different spreadsheets by using the Summary option and Three-Dimensional Cell reference! With training you’ll soon have the skills to create charts, graphs and other visuals based on all kinds of business data, whatever sector you work in.

Excel also allows you to see into the future!  Well, not quite – but it can help you plan ahead for different business scenarios. You can use its Logical functions to perform what-if analysis, for example to calculate a bonus for an employee if a sales target is met. There are also clever features like Date and Time Function for performing calculations on dates and Text functions to easily manipulate the look of your text.

Getting trained in Excel’s many smart features will give the skills to power up your data. Getting better control of your information is great for business. And that’s no secret.

We all know a successful company is only as good as its information. The secret of every thriving business is definitely in the detail. So how can you manage your business information to get more out of it?

It’s one of the best-known features of Microsoft Office, but many people still aren’t making the most of Excel. O.K, so you might already know you can create spreadsheets on Excel. But did you know the level to which Excel can help you use, share and show your business information? It works for all kinds of business activities too – from creating timesheets to generating invoices to tracking your business income.

It’s great for everyday business activities, but Excel can also help you plan for the future.  And that’s a must in today’s tough financial climate. After an advanced training course you could use Excel to see exactly what’s ahead for your business by creating detailed financial forecasts. You can even change the financial model with updated information to view the results of different business scenarios!

Here’s another smart Excel secret. Ever wished you could get more out of your business information? Of course you have. This powerful tool is called a pivot table and it allows you to drop in your data and rearrange it to answer all kinds of questions.  Want to know your sales levels for a specific product range?  Looking to check which parts of your business are performing best? The pivot table helps get much more out of your business information. And it’s simple – once you know how to use it.

Excel can’t run your business for you. But, with the right training, it can help you boost your business planning – long into the future.