Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Book Description

Turn your financial data into insightful decisions with this straightforward guide to financial modeling with Excel

Interested in learning how to build practical financial models and forecasts but concerned that you don’t have the math skills or technical know-how? We’ve got you covered! Financial decision-making has never been easier than with Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies. Whether you work at a mom-and-pop retail store or a multinational corporation, you can learn how to build budgets, project your profits into the future, model capital depreciation, value your assets, and more.

You’ll learn by doing as this book walks you through practical, hands-on exercises to help you build powerful models using just a regular version of Excel, which you’ve probably already got on your PC. You’ll also:

• Master the tools and strategies that help you draw insights from numbers and data you’ve already got
• Build a successful financial model from scratch, or work with and modify an existing one to your liking
• Create new and unexpected business strategies with the ideas and conclusions you generate with scenario analysis

Don’t go buying specialized software or hiring that expensive consultant when you don’t need either one. If you’ve got this book and a working version of Microsoft Excel, you’ve got all the tools you need to build sophisticated and useful financial models in no time!

Table of contents

Part 1 Getting Started with Financial Modeling	
Chapter 1 Introducing Financial Modeling
Chapter 2 Getting Acquainted with Excel
Chapter 3 Planning and Designing Your Financial Model
Chapter 4 Building a Financial Model by the Rulebook
Chapter 5 Using Someone Else’s Financial Model

Part 2 Diving Deep into Excel	
Chapter 6 Excel Tools and Techniques for Financial Modeling
Chapter 7 Using Functions in Excel
Chapter 8 Applying Scenarios to Your Financial Model
Chapter 9 Charting and Presenting Model Output

Part 3 Building Your Financial Model	
Chapter 10 Building an Integrated Financial Statements Model
Chapter 11 Building a Discounted Cash Flow Valuation
Chapter 12 Budgeting for Capital Expenditure and Depreciation

Part 4 The Part of Tens	
Chapter 13 Ten Strategies for Reducing Error
Chapter 14 Ten Common Pitfalls to Avoid

About The Author

Danielle Stein Fairhurst

Danielle Stein Fairhurst is the principal of Plum Solutions, a Sydney-based financial modelling consultancy. With her talent for analytical modelling and professional approach, Danielle helps her clients create meaningful financial models for business analysis. Over past decades she has worked in a number of industry sectors, including telecoms, information systems, manufacturing, and financial services, with solutions such as business cases, pricing models, and management reports. She is regularly engaged as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant around Australia and globally. She holds a master of business administration (MBA) from Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and has taught management accounting subjects at Sydney University. Danielle lives in Sydney with her husband and two children, but travels widely and enjoys the challenge of balancing a healthy family lifestyle with her passion for financial modelling pedagogy.