5.5 CPE Microsoft Excel is considered one of the most useful tools in the workplace. However, if Excel is used incorrectly, it can seriously drag down productivity. This guides you through Excel and enables you to boost your productivity and save your most valuable resource: time. We start by exploring the top 5 productivity boosting shortcuts. Next, we'll look at how we can improve spreadsheet design, boost our proficiency with additional shortcuts, master the fundamental functions, and finally we'll make sure our spreadsheets are error free. This course is the primer to Excel you didn't know you needed!
Learning Objectives
- Identify 5 top productivity shortcuts in MS Excel
- Utilize Excel data tables and named ranges in excel
- Demonstrate the use of conditional formatting and explore alternatives to the SUM function
- Be able to hide and unhide worksheets
- Improve your workbook organization for better, faster use
- Demonstrate the basics of nested functions and better workbook design
- Increase your Excel speed with selected shortcuts
- Remove duplicates from lists and tables
- Look up values in a table using VLOOKUP
- Utilize multiple lookup functions such as VLOOKUP, MATCH, and INDEX
- Be able to trap errors with IFERROR function and create indented report labels
- Demonstrate multiple uses for the IF function
- Enact multi-column comparisons with COUNTIFS
- Be able to create indented report labels
- Articulate tactics for Excel data validation and reporting
- Improve error checking
- Implement concatenation basics
- Build your own Date with the Date function
Last updated/reviewed: August 21, 2023
- 1. Excel Efficiency: Large Spreadsheets
- 2. Excel Efficiency: Overcoming Idiosyncrasies
- 3. Excel Magic 7: Creating Excel Charts like a PRO
- 4. Excel Magic 1: Building Dynamic Formulas
- 5. Excel Modeling 101: 10 Dos and Don'ts
- 6. EXCEL Challenges (Part I): Real Cases from Work
- 7. Doing Data Analytics In Excel (Hands-on module)
- 8. Budgeting in Excel
- 9. Excel Efficiency: Error Prompts Explained
- 10. Power BI: Building Interactive Dashboards
127 Reviews (477 ratings)
Reviews
Katherine Hart
(None at Not Applicable)
I use this course and the materials CONSTANTLY in my work and it has helped my career dramatically. As long as you work hard and try, you can do anything. The people at work think I’m a literal wizard because of my excel skills which have been amped up due to this course. I have done this 5 hour course at least 5 times in order to practice and drill in the concepts. I want to work for this company!
Homer Hernandez
(Owner at Homer Hernandez CPA)
I liked the real world examples. Workbook design tips will give me and my supervisor more confidence. The use of lists or drop downs will eliminate errors and wasted time.The course not only shows function syntax but also its use in worksheets. Also the tips will help me become much more efficient. I will always use the subtotal function and conditional formatting to spot errors.
Anonymous
(Analyst)
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Anonymous
(Grant Accountant)
Enoyed working through examples to often the real world step through is missing and this was a pleasent surprise. However sometimes the speed of entry by the instructor caused me to have to pause mulitple times and it took longer than expected to do the course. I really enjoyed the table functions and remember to name lists,etc., to build better reports.
Anonymous
(Senior Accounting Manager)
This course is very effective and easy to follow. Jeff does a great job of walking you through excel shortcuts, formulas, organizational techniques that is sure to increase your job productivity. I would recommend this course to those who work with excel often in their jobs. I look forward to incorporating these skills in my day to day use.
Anonymous
(GL Accountant)
The instructor went a little too fast whenever he went over the exercises, particulary entering functions. It made it difficult to follow along. I had to pause and rewind a few times to catch up and try to understand what he was doing. Nevertheless, this was still a good class and I learned quite a bit of new things.
Anonymous
()
I have been using Excel for several years and have taken other Excel courses before, but I was still able to learn some helpful tips and techniques from this course. A lot of the information was review, but mixed in was quite a bit of new information or ways to better utilize Excel features I was already aware of.
Pamela Hartmann
(Program Specialist at VA - U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
Excellent course! It was a great review of the power of Excel from the productivity boosting shortcuts through formatting and data validation. I would reference this course over again when working in Excel.The instructor presented the course in an engaging and exciting format. I highly recommend to colleagues.
Sergey Bulychev
(internal auditor at Transneft Finance LLC)
Просто фантастический курс по Excel! После него вы становитесь по-настоящему продвинутым пользователем электронных таблиц от Microsoft! Автору - респект и уважуха!
Anonymous
()
I consider myself to be a pretty good Excel user, and I learned a few new tricks and ways to be more efficient. This is a long course, and I would suggest going through the different examples. Only problem I had, was that I couldn't seem to get all of the Excel templates to open.
Shawna Barrientos
( at Alterman, Inc.)
This course was great, provided me great information to take back and immediately put to use. It would be more helpful for me as a reference to have all the files saved as one continuous .pdf simply so I don't have to guess which files includes the information I am looking for.
Anonymous
(-)
Several of the courses included in this package are offered a la carte. You are well advised to take them all in sequence using this course series.
Jeff is a great teacher with top notch materials and delivery. I can't recommend his classes, any of them, highly enough.
Anonymous
(CPA)
pace is a bit fast and skips a few things, but overall a really great and comprehensive course for improving your excel skillset with great workbooks. I'd love to see it upgraded to the current period, but otherwise, mostly still works with the current software!
Nikita Patel
(Consultant at DLC Group)
I really enjoyed this course! I am an intermediate Excel user and found some of these tips and tricks to be tools I can get good use of in my day-to-day job. I wish I had some of the shortcuts covered in the videos in a handout that I can refer to later.
Anonymous
()
All of the information is good and relevant with good examples. However, this is more information than a 5 hour course should have. There really needed to be time to practice in between. It should have had more credits or more time spent on each segment.
Sheilah Brown
(Controller at SMB LTC)
My only dislike is that the slides are not available for download. The spreadsheets are very helpful, but don't show the overall concept that is being taught. Together they are very powerful in showing how to use Excel functions to make your job easier.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
It is interesting and contains very good information, but the only materials found in this course where only for the first Chapter - Excel Training: 5 Top Productivity Boosting Shortcuts" I wish all of the chapters had the material presented.
Anonymous
(Director)
I highly recommend this course. I am a heavy user of excel but I was surprised that I have learned various tips, shortcuts and formulas that I don't use today. The examples provided are helpful and the instructor is very clear and engaging.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
Excel made easy by Jeff's instruction method, content and data selection for the course. Must take course for any Excel learner. Final exam questions were smartly crafted. Love this course. Thanks illumeo for bringing the course to us.
Steve Brown
(Senior Auditor at Charter Communications)
There is a lot of information presented in this long course. All of it was great information, but I think it was too much to be presented in one course. I believe it would be better served to be broken out into several courses.
Julie Hammeras CPA
(Sr. Manager, Transformation - ERP at Liberty Utilities)
Jeff Lenning is a great teacher and getting to do the exercises really helps keep the concepts easier to remember. He talks a little too fast, so it was great to be able to pause and work the exercises as he goes through them.
John Ball
(controller at CPP)
good course for anyone wanting to add to the knowledge of excel without getting to complex. There are many good tips and clever formulas, work arounds and productivity boosters. It makes you curious and you want to go further.
Anonymous
(Senior Manager, Internal Audit)
The course is hands on from start to finish, and delivered in a very engaging manner. Highly recommended to anyone using Excel, regardless of years of experience. I expect to watch this again and again to digest what I learned.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
Needs to slow down when inputting examples. Not enough time to work along so constantly pausing the videos. This was a good refresher from when I took my last college excel course plus a lot of basics that I wasn't aware of.
Tanya Noor
( at Bahrain Airport Services)
One of the most useful courses i have taken for CPE! I will make sure to take it again to refresh my memory every so often. Highly recommend it! Also excellent instructor; really explained the material in a simple manner.
Anonymous
(Senior Accounting & Reporting An..)
Great course - very helpful and useful! I really enjoyed all the additional practices sheets and extra credit. Jeff does a great job of using practical examples and walking through things in enough detail to recreate.
Anonymous
(Finance and IT Consultant)
Excellent course coverage. I appreciate the efforts taken by the Instructor to demonstrate the capabilities of Excel. The course throws a lots of tips, tricks and shortcuts to make you very efficient in using Excel.
Kayla Garbison
(Account Executive at Yelp)
Very informative and useful! These tips and tricks are things I can implement every day in my workplace. I definitely suggest doing the workbooks along with the instructor to ensure each objective is learned.
Anonymous
(Fund Accountant)
I consider myself an advanced Excel user and there were many helpful tips in this course to make me think about the way I create workbooks and to consider alternatives to the way I approach certain tasks.
Bob Phipps
( at R.W. Phipps, PA)
this was amazing, i will be continuing the homework and want to call the lecturer to specifically talk about some recurring clients that i have. are you available for consulting work at a reasonable fee?
Anonymous
()
I think this was a very good course. Although I am a long time Excel user, I found a lot of value in the table formatting/functions, alternatives to VLOOKUPs and a number of the other tips and tricks.
Anonymous
(Not Provided)
Although the course is oriented on recurring tasks (like, accounting reports preparation), many techniques explained here are useful for other purposes, e.g. for data analysis. Overall, great course.
Ted Feher
(Owner at Feher, PC (CPA))
A lot of information but extremely useful. Well put together, neatly explained, and the lesson workbooks make for a excellent resource. Especially liked the sections on dynamic namig etc.
Anonymous
(AP Specialist - Payments Team)
Overall had a lot of knowledge that was a good refresher from not using these functions and tools in excel in quite awhile. Instructor was very helpful and made it very easy to learn from
Anonymous
(Snr Accounting Consultant, CPA)
I truly enjoyed this course. It was not only a great review but I learnt a lot of tricks. I have always enjoyed Jeff's teaching style, and it is great that I have the accompanying books.
Anonymous
(Accounts Receivable)
Great course for learning more about Excel! This course prepared me to be more efficient in Excel. I learned multiple lookup functions such as VLOOKUP, MATCH, and INDEX. Thank you!
Anonymous
()
I will likely go back and watch some of this content again. A lot of functions that I've seen but not fully understood are explained really well. The shortcut content is fantastic!
Sandra Heelan
(CPA, CFE, MBA at None)
Jeff is a great instructor and his classes are useful for everyone. Providing the worksheets and answers allows you to go back and review if it is a concept you don't use often.
Alex Ledin
(Financial Analyst at Lockheed Martin Co.)
A treasure trove. I'm an advanced Excel user (pivots, macros, and VB) and I learned stuff... so you will too. One of the best courses that I've taken (for CPA CPE) on Illumeo.
Anonymous
()
Very informative and very practical ways to use Excel to increase efficiency in work. As well as going over what Excel functions work best for different scenarios.
Anonymous
(Sr Financial Analyst)
good info, some might be a bit outdated, but still good overall. minimum characters requirement; minimum characters requirement; minimum characters requirement;
Lori Lusk
( at N/A)
Jeff is hilarious. I love the humor of a fellow spreadsheet nerd. I learned some really great tricks and tips that I hadn't thought of before. Highly recommend!
Jacob Daniel
( at United Community Bank)
More accounting based, but overall helpful with learning quick tips in excel. I enjoyed the excel examples and working through the the formulas and functions.
Anonymous
()
I found the tips and shortcuts very useful and time saving. I also discovered some I had not previously known. The course was relevant and well thought out.
Anonymous
(CFO)
One of the Excel courses I’ve take. I’m planning to review this information with my team and adopt many of the principles presented in this course.
Jessica Spaulding
(Accountant at Firebirds Funding)
A lot of great information in this course. I'm looking forward to putting it into practice in my daily life and simplifying our reporting processes.
Adara Reese
(Program Analyst-Auditor at VA - U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
A lot of content, might have been easier to grasp in smaller groups. However, I do enjoy this instructor and will continue taking courses from him.
Anonymous
(CSR)
This has been a great course for expanding my skills in Excel. Has some very usable, practical knowledge that I can apply in my daily use of Excel.
Anonymous
(Senior Manager, Compliance)
This was one of the best courses I took - I really liked the fact that you could follow along with the instructor using the worksheets provided!
Anonymous
(Accounting Manager)
I have taken many of Jeff's courses and always enjoy them and learn something. This was a great way to get a good chunk of CPE done with too.
Anonymous
()
Good intro to formulas and shortcuts. I like the lighthearted tone and pace. The lessons are clear and to the point. Very well organized.
Collin Engelhardt
(Director of Financial Services at University of Mary)
This is a great course! Only drawback was I could not get the supporting documents to download. The content was, however, incredibly useful!
Chris Smith
(Auditor III at TVA OIG)
Awesome Sauce. I enjoyed the class and having a refresher on content I have forgottnen. There's a lot of formulas I will continue to use.
james dalton
( at ME)
Great content. Great examples to work through. This was the longest 5.5hrs of CE in my life. Should be more hours. Very helpful indeed.
Anonymous
(Accounting Professional)
I love the practical examples Jeff uses to demonstrate WHY you might want to use a particular shortcut or function or best practice.
Anonymous
(None)
Clearly presented with good examples. I already know and use many of these functions, but there were some tips I need to use more.
Anonymous
(Senior Accounting Analyst)
Thoroughly enjoyed the detailed analysis of excel functions and shortcuts. Excel is such an underutilized tool for data analytics.
Anonymous
()
Good course. I liked the instructor. The course could use some better support materials that I could save and use in the future.
Christine Seres
(Senior Associate at RSM)
More time should be allocated to this course if the individual is attempting to complete the exercises as part of their training.
Anonymous
(Tax Consultant)
Great course. I learned a lot of Excel tips. Highly recommended even for those who believe themselves to be skilled Excel users.
Philip Simonson
(CFO / Broker at Omnetics Connector Corporation)
Excellent and pretty deep dive into some really useful functions and efficiency tips. Homework and samples are also very good.
Anonymous
(Accounting Manager)
This is an awesome class. The examples are practical. He explains the process and then he creates the formulas step by step.
Anonymous
(Mgr, Accounting/Reporting, Internal Repo..)
I learned some new tips for using Excel. But maybe breaking this training up into a few sessions might be easier for the user.
Anonymous
()
This course was helpful and a good refresher. The shortcuts and keys demonstrated within this course is good for everyday use.
Angie Surry
(Field Business Plan Analyst at Charter Field Ops Business Planning)
I knew a lot of the presentation, but it's a great course because I learned some new techniques and wasn't a starter course.
Martin Smith
(owner at M. Ward Smith, Inc.)
This is a very good course that took a retard like me about 5 days to get through. I'm astonished that it's worth 5.5 hrs.
Lauren Reid
(Senior Accounting Manager at People.ai)
great overview of a BUNCH of excel tricks. I learned about match, index, and the and funtion. super helpful trick with F9
Ben Cudlip
(Staff Accountant at Omaze)
Everything I learned in this course was applicable to my job on an everyday basis. I can't wait to apply what I learned.
Rene Galvan
(Broker at RGV Realty)
Instructor was very enthusiastic! His comments made me laugh. Time moved quickly and learned lots of new functions.
Anonymous
(Senior Financial Analyst)
Good refresher course. Seems that we know all but, refresher courses like these bring us back to learning curve.
Sean Kennedy
(SOX Compliance Manager at TowneBank)
Very good course. I know A LOT about Excel, and still found a couple of nuggets in there that I was not aware of.
Anonymous
(Card Program Administrator)
Very informant course - contained a lot of good information. Course instructor very good with good examples.
Anonymous
(Accounts Payable Specialist)
Great course and information. I like the instructor despite some cheesy moments. Suggestion to all my coworkers.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
This was a lot to learn in one course but I really enjoyed it! Love the instructor's enthusiasm about Excel.
Cody Compton
(CFO at ENTACT, LLC)
Good variety of excel topics that will be used across many functions. Appropriate pace, variety and detail.
Anonymous
(Auditor)
This was a great course to refresh and learn new excel skills that can improve time management and workflow.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
The course simply explained Excel techniques and concepts that have very powerful applications in business.
Anonymous
()
A lot to remember when trying to answer final exam questions, but excellent tips if
practiced each day.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
Instructor very knowledgeable and presents the subject matter in a very organized and clear manner.
Anonymous
(Auditor)
This course was very easy to follow and well explained on how to use Excel functions and shortcuts.
Clayton Armfield
(Senior Financial Analyst at Stryker)
Great job. I would consider adding in time-lapse links for specific sections in the longer videos.
Shaila Shankar
( at Minted)
This course was outstanding in helping boost my efficiency and knowledge of excel functionality.
Chris Fameree
( at Diligence Solutions Group, LLC)
I could spend forever working on the formulas. I think less content and more time to practice.
Anonymous
(Finance Manager)
Good course. Long, but does a good job of explaining excel functions, formulas, and shortcuts.
RICARDO CAMPOLINA DE TOLEDO
( at WPP)
Great course, very practical examples, close to my day to day activities. Clear explanations.
JOSH Aharonoff
( at Graphite Financial)
Excellent course and refresher on some important excel functions - thank for all the help!
Anonymous
()
great overview of excel functions. Also learned some function I could apply to FP&A role.
Ashton Williams
(Controller at Codaray Construction, LLC)
Excellent course that will provide shortcuts and logic in excel that can be used daily.
John Russell
( at The Master's University and Seminar..)
Good material that is well presented. The supporting materials are clear and helpful.
Natasha Hicks
( at Hilton, Inc)
Very useful information! Helpful for anyone that needs to improve their Excel skills.
Anonymous
()
high again its me...love excel hope you do too. this course was fun and challenging
Anonymous
(Treasury Director)
Excellent course! Jeff makes this material fun to learn. Great slides and examples.
Scott Anderton
(CFO at HCA)
Many tips and tricks. Some were refreshers and some were new concepts. Thank you!
Anonymous
(Sr. Accounting Manager)
The course was very helpful. I liked that it included a lot of practical exercises.
Amy Myers
(VP of Corporate Treasury at University of Maryland Medical System)
Great course with excellent tips! Grateful to learn more about keyboard shortcuts.
Ana Montano
(Jr Collector at Yelp)
n/a nothing much to say about this course. It was very long and very informative!
Megan Vice
( at Apex Group)
Great class! I consider myself very efficient in excel and I still learned a ton.
Anonymous
()
I found the Index Match functions most helpful to solve for Lookup limitations.
Ryan O'Donnell
( at Maiden Holdings, Ltd)
This was a great introductory course well suited to meet the stated objectives.
Anonymous
(Financial Analyst)
I'm very prepared to use excel after this course, it was simple but insightful!
Andrew Anderson, CPA
(Principal Financial Analyst at Rio Tinto)
Great training and really useful tips to improve workbook design and function.
Sam Grosoff
(Associate at RSM)
I really enjoyed mastering the excellence in excel training course series.
Anonymous
(N/A)
I learned a lot of new shortcuts that have advanced my knowledge of Excel.
Anonymous
(Internal Auditor)
Knowledge is power, and knowledge derived from big data is a great power.
zhu heinsohn
(accountant at Kraus)
very useful, and the author is good at the formula. and a lot of detail
Makarand Vaidya
(Senior Internal Auditor at Latitude12 Pty Ltd)
Helped me understand a lot of new ways of working efficiently in Excel
Anonymous
(Specialty Controller)
There were some great shortcuts that will help to improve my workflow.
Jatin Talreja
(Financial Accounting Consultant at Wells Fargo)
Great work , I loved working conditional summing with Data validation
Alan Rayman
( at Self)
Extremely helpful. This really uplifted my excel knowledge greatly.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
Great overview of so many efficiency tips and tricks. Very helpful.
Anonymous
(Chief Financial Officer)
Very comprehensive and lots of good information for any level user.
Anonymous
()
Good excel course with functions that are not typically thought of.
Anonymous
(Accountant)
Very helpful information for people in the accounting profession.
Sally Fonstein
(Corp Controller at Ustream, Inc.)
Really helpful course with relevant information to use every day.
Anonymous
(Financial Controller)
Great course! I would greatly recommend to accountant colleagues.
Ed Defuria
(director at iconectiv)
Very practical information. Just the right level of detail.
Anonymous
()
Great information on utilizing Excel features and shortcuts
Betty Parks
(Card Program Administrator at Charter Communications)
The answer spreadsheets were very helpful as a reference.
Maxwell Hassenstein
( at NeoGenomics)
really appreciated the section about data flow arrangement
Anonymous
()
This needs to be done again to include the XLookup formula
Anonymous
(Senior, SEC Reporting)
very helpful tools to gain efficiencies in every day work!
Anonymous
()
one of the best excel courses I have seen, very useful.
Anonymous
()
Great tools for Excel. Learned a ton. Thanks illumeo!
Anonymous
(Head of Internal Audit)
Very good tips for using excel. Useful to save time.
Anonymous
()
Very good excel tips and tricks; very helpful course
Anonymous
(Director of Accounting)
Very helpful even for frequent career excel users.
Laura Mensel
( at Rustici Software, LLC)
Great course! I'll come back and watch this again.
Prerequisites
Course Complexity: Intermediate
No Advanced Preparation or Prerequisites are needed for this course.
Education Provider Information
Company:
Illumeo, Inc., 75 East Santa Clara St., Suite 1215, San Jose, CA
95113
Contact:
For more information regarding this course, including complaint and
cancellation policies, please contact our offices at (408) 400- 3993 or send an e-mail to
.
Jeff LenningAuthor of Excel University
About Illumeo
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