Top 25 Useful Advanced Excel Formulas and Functions

A business nowadays needs the aid of various software and tools to manage and operate properly. The tools actually used to save time and resources in the language of the business by giving instantaneous results from the analysis. There are a lot of tools for variety of businesses available, out of which the most popular and famous tool that ay business needs is Microsoft Office Excel.

It is not a myth but a stated fact that Excel is helping small, medium and large scale businesses to store, maintain and analyze data into fruitful information with its eminent set of qualities to execute functions and advanced excel formula. The software single handedly manages and covers various types of grounds for a business like accounting, budgeting, sales and many more.

Things you can do with Excel

Considered as one of the most important and useful software you can do the following things with the eminent features of Excel.

Prepare magnificent charts

As we all know that there are a lot of grids in an excel sheet. These sheets are not only limited to input numbers or data but can also be used to prepare charts of potential data by using advanced excel formula and functions. The rows and columns are filled with data which can be sorted, filtered and organized by the functions assigned. The information from the assigning and organizing gives birth to charts as a visual presentation for better understandability.

The set of numbers is not easy to understand and come up with a conclusion. The pie charts, clustered columns and graphs make it a whole lot easier to analyze and interpret information in little time. Excel is a versatile tool in making business reports and proper marketing material.

Visually aiding conditional formatting

The options of adding colors, shades, italics, bold, etc help to differentiate the rows and columns to find out data fast and saves a lot of time. The color difference makes a user to find out the respective column and row in the vast range of data pool. The formatting tab allows a user to input a coloring scheme at ease.

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Trend identification

Statistical impact in a business is huge when it come to strategy building by seeing the trends and predicting the next. The charts, graphs, clustered columns and other visual representations can be assigned with average lines. The average line helps an analyzer to understand the key trend in the data pool. It can easily interpret the key points behind the format.

The trend or average lines can be taken a bit further by means of projection. These projections in the visual representation help to foresee the future trends. The forecast can help to build new strategies that will take the business into a new development level.

Bring anything

The versatile software can handle almost any type of data. It can be spreadsheets, documents and even images. The access is made easier when all the data in brought under a single roof for the ease of work. Importing any sort of data is like a cake walk in Excel. The Insert Tab helps the user to do the conglomeration of data.

The cloud feature of Excel has taken its uses to a different level. Office 365 Business and its premium version can be accessed from multiple devices which makes business better. The coordination of documents and sheets with this program makes remote working possible.

Advanced excel formula and functions

Excel has its immense purposeful applications. 95% of the users apply the basic form. There are functions and advanced excel formula that can be used for complex calculations. The functions are designed for easy lookup and formatting of large pool of data whereas the advanced excel formula are implemented to get new information from a given particular set of data.

1. VLOOKUP

The function is used to look up for a piece of information in a large segment of data and pull that data to your newly formed table. You have to visit the function option. The insert function tab will let you enter ‘VLOOKUP’ or you can find it in the list. Once it is selected a wizard box will open with different set of box options.

You can enter your variables into:

Lookup_value

This is the option where your typed variables will go to look for the values in the cells of the larger table for information.

Table Array

It sets the range of the large table from where the information will be drawn. It sets the extent of the data you want to pick.

Col_index_num

This command box specifies the column from where data has to be pulled.

Range_lookup

Here you enter either true or false. The true option will give the set of information which is the closest to what you want to find, when anything does not match with the variables. When you enter false it will give you the exact value you are looking for or will show #N/A when the data is not found.

2. Sum Function

This function is mot popularly used to sum a group of numbers in the particular column. The sum function has a dedicated button for itself in the Home tab which can be used to sum after selecting the part of the column.

3. MAX MIN function

This function is used to pull the maximum and the minimum values from the selected set of data. To get the maximum value you have to enter ‘MAX’ in the function tab and to get the minimum value you have to enter ‘MIN’. The function will automatically draw the values from the primary data table.

4. IF Function

The IF function is used to pull an information of truth and false regarding a parameter set in the variable box. The IF statement is written or broken as:

IF(Criteria,True,False value)

After the criteria are lodged in the selected column then the answers are used to check out for the forecast to give results accordingly.

5. SUMIF Function

SUMIF function helps you to look up for a certain set of information that matches your criteria. The criteria are entered in a wizard box which contains the range tab, criteria tab and the sum range tab.

The range tab signifies the area you want to look in. The cell is found by the criteria tab and the sum range tab adds up the data which match your criteria.

6. COUNTIF Function

The only difference between the previous function and COUNTIF function is that the latter does not add up the matching values from the cells. It just pulls and shows the set to you.

7. AND Function

This function is used to set more than one criterion for searching the variables. If the variable matches with the multiple criteria then the value is returned as True or else the search shows FALSE. The wizard box has tabs where you can enter logical set of criteria to find the behavior of the selected set of data. The result comes with another column of TRUE and FALSE at the right side.

8. OR function

The OR function is a little different from the previous AND Function. OR function checks for only one criterion to be TRUE and pulls the value whereas the AND needs every criterion to match to give a TRUE result. In no criterion matches then the FALSE value comes out.

9. LEFT Function

The LEFT function helps you to pull the part of the data in a selected column from the left side. You can set the variable or the extent of data you want in your new column via commands.

10. RIGHT Function

You can pull a part of data from the selected column set from the right side of the information by setting variables in the command box.

11. CONCATENATION Function

This function is the combination of both LEFT and RIGHT Functions in Excel where a new column of data is prepared by setting the variable to pull a particular section of the data from left and right.

12. ROUND Function

This function is used to round up data with a lot of digits after the decimal point for the convenience of calculation. You do not need to format the cell.

13. PROPER Function

This proper function is used to capitalize or uppercase the letters of a sentence in the cells. It can be done in a customized way. You can selectively change the letters in whatever format you want.

14. NOW Function

The NOW function is used to insert a column that defines the time when the entry of data is done in that particular cells at the right side of the NOW column. You can change the NOW value to date only also.

15. Change the case

This advanced excel formula is used to change the case of the cells in aggregate. The letters will be changed to the command you have given like from lower to upper or vice versa and bold them by Proper command.

16. TRIM advanced excel formula

This advanced excel formula is used to trim or remove extra spaces which appear when a set of data is copied from another source.

17. Customized MAX MIN

This advanced excel formula helps you to extract the customized MAX and Min values from the selected set of cells as per their orders and degrees. You can select the fifth highest among the large data pool easily by inputting proper commands in the array.

18. Choose()

This advanced excel formula is used to remove lengthier IF function statements and to pull the particular set of data you want. It is used when there is more than two outcomes for a particular given condition.

19. REPT()

This code is used to get as many times of a character in a cell.

20. TYPE()

This advanced excel formula is very handy when you are working in a spreadsheet created by someone else. This command helps you to track down the type of data the cell is having.

21. RANDBETWEEN()

This advanced excel formula lets you to generate a random number between the values you have set. It helps when you want to simulate some results or behavior in the spreadsheets.

22. Unit conversion by CONVERT()

You do not have to seek help to Google all the time to find out the converted value of a data in different units. The CONVERT() advanced excel formula will do the rest. The versatile function can also be used to convert currencies and many other things.

23. PV function

The PV function n Excel is a versatile virtual financial expert which can calculate rate, periods for investment, payment per period, future value and other arguments based on the input of the variables.

24. Time functions

There are a lot of functions that are used to show particular information regarding time.

WEEKNUM() is used to get the particular number of the week at a particular date.
WORKDAY() gives the date of the working day when number of days is specified.
NETWORKDAYS() gives the number of working days between two supplied dates by excluding the weekends and holidays.
YEARFRAC() allows a user to find out the fraction of year when two dates are supplied.
EDATE() gives the specific date when a the number of days after a particular date is mentioned.

25. Mathematical functions

There are a set of commands for various mathematical applications to calculate values in different segments of mathematics. Finding aggregate, difference, total, quotient, LCM, GCD, etc is cakewalk with Excel.

Conclusion

The entire design of Excel is to give the best aid possible to ease a particular work, be it education or related to business. Especially in business, finance and accounting cannot move a single step without the software. Product management and marketing has to rely on the foresight based on the trend results in Excel. The opportunities are limitless. In fact there are so many uses that it cannot be listed exactly. It will always be the most useful versatile piece of software for every type of business. Like its name, a company uses Excel to excel in its ventures.