UThe University of Utah · David Eccles School of BusinessACCTG 6155
Week 4, Excel Fundamentals, Power Query, and FSA Setup
Excel properly this time. The lab drills the formulas until they are automatic, the homework runs the real Compustat file through Power Query. Sep 14–20.
The full lecture deck, with the Ask AI tutor built in. Section 002 meets Monday, September 14 and section 001 meets Wednesday, September 16. Open it before your session or work through it afterwards.
The in-browser SQL editor loaded with the Compustat firms data. Optional this week. It is here so you can check an Excel answer a second way, which is the fastest way to catch a formula that is quietly wrong.
References, ranges, arguments, nesting. How to look at a formula somebody else wrote and know what it does before you change it. Start here if the lab formulas look like noise.
Thirteen short formula drills: IF and the guarded ratio, IFS, AND and OR, conditional aggregates, lookups, the prior-year lag, and text to number. Practice each one before you use it. Project 1 needs the lag.
Why a handful of extreme values wrecks an average, and the two-percentile formula that caps them. Homework 4 asks you to winsorize the margin column, so walk this first if the word is new.
Nine short modules in one workbook: data types, cleanup functions, lookups, conditionals, SUMIF and COUNTIF, INDEX and MATCH, dates, error handling, and one applied exercise. This is the version of the Lab 4 drill that still has its hints and worked examples. Download it and work it in Excel. Not graded, and a good place to start if the lab formulas are new to you.
Seven passes to run on a workbook you did not build, in the order that finds the most damage soonest. Hardcodes hiding inside formulas, broken references, and the tables-against-ranges question.