Surgent Certificate Programs

In today’s business world, most people need to be able to find their way around an Excel^® spreadsheet. However, the bar is much higher for those in accounting and finance roles. To perform at peak proficiency, CPAs and other accounting and finance professionals genuinely need to be Excel^®; “power users.”

That’s why Surgent developed the Critical Skills Certificate in Excel for Accounting and Finance Professionals. In eight highly targeted hours of online instruction, we will equip you with the exact level of advanced Excel skills you need as a working CPA or other accounting and finance professional.

This Certificate Course is ideal for new graduates seeking positions in accounting and finance and new hires or associates who could benefit from a deeper understanding of Excel^®’s capabilities.

CPAs and other accounting and finance professionals must be extremely proficient in Excel^®’s extensive capabilities. Each of the four modules in our Certificate Course will help students master the specific functions and capabilities of Excel^® that are critical for professionals in accounting and finance roles.

Module 1: “Mastering Must-Have Skills for Accounting and Finance Roles”

Module 1 Overview:  There are specific “must-have” skills for everyone using Excel—the ability to create workbooks and sheets, enter text and data and use essential functions like sorting and summing.  For many business people these capabilities may be all they need throughout their career.  For accounting and finance professionals, these skills are just prerequisites to the real must-have skills they will use daily in the tax and accounting world.  In this first module, you’ll get a thorough grounding in the time-saving shortcuts and strategies finance professionals use to boost their productivity in Excel.

Major Topics in Module 1:

More about Summing than you knew there was to know, including better ways to sum than the “sum” function.

• The biggest pitfalls in Excel and how to work around them
• The most essential keyboard shortcuts for accounting and finance pros
• Better alternatives to hiding rows and columns
• The best and fastest ways to navigate between workbooks and files
• How to structure worksheets so that embedded functions include any newly inserted rows
• How to use Excel with Styles\

Module 2:  Taking Control of Your Data with Tables and Conditional Summing

Module 2 Overview:  In this module, we will explore the powerful concept of splitting data from reports and dig into the mechanics that enable this technique.  The key to it all is the Tables feature, and the function that lets you take control of your data with tables is the multiple-condition summing function.  We’ll first understand these items fully and then apply them in various ways.

Major Topics in Module 2:

• Understanding how and when to use the Table feature
• Using the Table object to store data
• Mastering the function arguments for conditional summing
• Using the multiple-condition summing function to aggregate table data
• Using the table object to create mapping tables
• Building crosstab-style reports

Module 3 Overview:  Many Excel users pull values from one cell into another using direct cell references (for example, =G10).  This may work but it misses out on the significant efficiency gains that can be achieved by using a variety of Excel lookup functions.  Power users of Excel are aware of and use the VLookup function but are also painfully aware of its limitations—especially that it cannot go left.   The most expert Excel users know how to bypass those limitations by using nesting functions. The real Excel rock stars know about capabilities that let them move beyond VLookup altogether.  In this third module of the Excel Certificate Course, we will unlock these secrets for you.

Major Topics in Module 3:

• Recognizing when and why a lookup function would be better than a direct cell reference
• Using three key Excel lookup functions as an alternative to direct cell references
• Understanding and applying the capabilities of VLookup functions
• Understanding the limitations of VLookup functions
• Mastering ways to move beyond VLookup limitations

Module 4:   “Unleashing the Potential of the ‘PivotTable’”
Module 4 Overview:  Of all the advanced Excel capabilities accounting and finance professionals use, none are as critical to unlocking Excel’s full potential as the PivotTable.  A Pivot Table is essentially an Excel report that summarizes data.  That sounds simple enough, but in fact, these tables require advanced Excel skills to build.  If you haven’t yet explored PivotTables, it’s time. 

Major Topics in Module 4 :

• Mastering the basics of PivotTable functionality and capabilities
• Retrieving data from a database and feeding it into a PivotTable
• Understanding how external data sources can be used to feed a PivotTable
• Using Excel’s web browser to pull data from web pages into your Excel PivotTable