Maximizing Excel Charts (Video) (Course Id 2585)

1. Who is this course for?

This course is designed for anyone needing Continuing Professional Education (CPE), particularly CPAs, accountants, and other professionals who use Microsoft Excel and want to improve their charting skills.

2. What is this course about or what problem does this course solve?

This course teaches participants how to create, streamline, automate, and troubleshoot Excel charts, including self-expanding charts, self-updating chart titles, rolling charts, Waterfall Charts, customized chart templates, and chart display issues.

3. Where can the knowledge from this course be used?

The knowledge gained from this course can be applied in business, accounting, financial reporting, data analysis, and other professional environments where Excel charts are used to present and analyze data.

4. Why is this course important to a CPA or Accountant?

This course helps CPAs and accountants improve the accuracy, efficiency, and presentation of financial and operational data by leveraging advanced Excel charting techniques that can enhance reporting and analysis.

5. When is this course relevant or timely?

This course is relevant whenever professionals need to create or improve Excel-based reports, dashboards, financial presentations, or data visualizations, especially when working with Microsoft 365, Excel 2021, Excel 2019, or Excel 2016.

6. How is a course like this consumed or used?

This is a QAS Self Study video course that is completed by watching the instructional presentation, reviewing the included handouts and Excel workbook examples, and passing the final exam with a score of at least 70% to earn CPE credit.

In this presentation author and Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, shares lots of tricks and techniques you can implement to create, streamline, and even automate Excel charts. You'll see how to build self-expanding charts that automatically display new data, along with self-updating chart titles. David will show how to create a rolling chart to display results such as trailing twelve-sales. You'll also learn how to create and use customized chart templates, build a Waterfall Chart to illustrate a financial statement, and troubleshoot frustrating chart issues.

David is the author of “Microsoft Excel 365 for Dummies”, “Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures”, and has written or co-authored six other books. He demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Excel for Microsoft 365. David draws your attention to any differences in Excel 2021, 2019 or 2016 during the presentation and in his detailed handouts. The handouts include an Excel workbook with most of the examples he uses during his demonstrations.

Excel for Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that receives periodic feature updates. Conversely, perpetually licensed versions have year numbers in their names and do not receive any feature updates.

Course Learning Objectives

• Recall the keyboard shortcut that creates a chart object on an Excel worksheet.
• Identify the chart you must create to plot data on two vertical axes.
• Identify and apply the appropriate axis type in an Excel chart to control the display of date-based data, ensuring that missing dates (such as weekends) do not create unintended gaps.