Advanced Management Reporting in Excel, London,20th May 2009

You know that you have all of the information you need in your accounting and management systems, however every day, week and month you (and your team) spend time pulling it from different sources, tweaking it and presenting it in a format that you (and the rest of the management team) can use.

What if you had the skills to automatically populate your existing spreadsheets and/or create new ones that give you all of the information you need, in a few clicks, when you want it. You can reduce time spent on management accounts preparation, for example, from days to minutes or even seconds.

This one-day workshop is a rare opportunity to learn my unique approach to automating all of your reports (from simple sales reports to complex management accounts). This is possible, no matter what accounting and management software you use in your business.

For just £275 plus VAT per delegate, you will learn how to:

• Interrogate your existing systems
• Analyse the resulting data using lookups and pivot tables
• Present it in any format, including your existing spreadsheets (no matter how complex), automatically

Click here to find out more and/or to book online.

Excel Management Reporting moves to London

My Advanced Management Reporting in Microsoft Excel Workshop has previously only been available in my native North East, however - due largely to a much increased web audience - I have decided to offer the next workshop in London, in May.

For full details, and to book online, please visit:

http://www.feechan.co.uk/index.htm?page=ExcelWorkshop

Another chance to really get to grips with management reporting in Excel

If you are in the North East of England (or can get there on the 25th March), you have another opportunity to really understand how to use Excel as a reporting tool, whatever accounting/ERP systems you use.

I am once again running my workshop, Advanced Management Reporting in Microsoft Excel, where you will learn how to access and manipulate data from any system and report it in any format. You will also learn all of the skills you need to completely automate your management accounts presentation, as per my blog post back in September, Do your management accounts take weeks, days, hours, minutes…or seconds to prepare?.

If you wish to book the workshop of find out more, please take a look here.

Alternatively, if you can't make it you could get some of the benefits by learning Pivot Tables with my downloadable video course.

Report in Excel like an OAP

When I work with clients on their management reporting I usually advise them to separate out the process into three, using my OAP approach.

OAP stands for Obtain, Analyse, Present:

Obtain - obtain the data. This may be through, say, an input sheet, but more likely from a database such as your accounting system or ERP package. Typically you would pull this in through an ODBC link. It should be pulled in in a format that is easy to analyse, i.e. in columns with unique headings.

Analyse - Analyse the data. The best way to do this is usually through Pivot Tables, particularly when combined with formulae, particularly lookup formulae, alongside the data.

Present - Consider whether the Pivot Table can be amended to present the data in an acceptable format, alternatively use the GETPIVOTDATA formula to populate any report, such as Management Accounts.

By treating each of these steps as separate, you will find that you can create far more flexible reports, simply.

Have a look at my video training course on Pivot Tables. Alternatively if you want to look at this whole approach in a lot more detail and you can get to Sunderland for 21st January, book yourself on my workshop.

Learn Pivot Tables Now

If you have been following my blog posts and ezine articles, you will know that I am a strong believer that you are only tapping in to a fraction of Excel's power if you do not understand Pivot Tables.

Pivot Tables form an integral part of the workshop I am running in January, along with a lot of other material you will find useful.

However, I am aware that a number of you are not based in the North East, and that training can be difficult to allocate budget to in a recession. To address these issues I am offering a video training package, available for immediate download, that will teach you the basics of Pivot Tables at a price that will suit any budget.

Please follow the link, and finally unlock the power of Pivot Tables.

"Invest to Survive" event

I will be speaking at the Invest to Survive event in Sunderland on 10th December, where I will be elaborating on my "10 Tips for Surviving in Hard Times" report, which is available free to those who sign up for the free "Not Just Numbers" ezine.

Also speaking at this event will be Andrew Nicholson, who will be talking about how to apply Lean principles to dealing with the recession.

For more details, or to find out booking details, visit here.

Why all finance directors need to know about ODBC

I regularly come across companies that are paying a small fortune to their software providers for any reporting they want from their ERP system. This is not only expensive, but usually takes a great deal of time and effort from the company's employees in explaining their requirements.

Often no-one at the software provider mentions a free route to report from their software using a tool that staff are familiar with. A quick email or phone call (asking the right question) to their support team and this can be set up - free of charge.

This is not some specific tool from the software provider, but one that is available (free) for almost every software package out there. The tool I am talking about is ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) which allows you to automatically use Excel to report from all of the database tables. For most databases this is already installed on your PC, although you might not know it -for more obscure databases there may be some software to install, but this is usually included on your initial installation disks.

If you have any issues reporting from your software, ask your provider about using the ODBC links - they will almost certainly be available. If you want to read more about what you can do with the data you access, read:

Do your management accounts take weeks, days, hours, minutes…or seconds to prepare?

Good luck!

Advanced Management Reporting in Microsoft Excel

If you are based in the North East of England (or could get there on the 21st October), you may be interested in the workshop described below. I rarely do this but it is very poular when I do.

"Thanks so much for running [the course] for our company recently.
It has certainly increased my own productivity. I now have no need to rely upon the rather unfriendly reporting abilities of our [accounting and MRP package] as I can extract the data and manipulate it in Excel much more efficiently.
The others that attended the course are also using it almost daily and training their colleagues.
The few people who were versed in the supplementary reporting package purchased alongside our current accounting and MRP package have now virtually abandoned it in favour of the superior and simpler functionality offered by Excel. Had I attended the course prior to purchasing the software in 2001 I certainly would not have bought the reporting package or any of the associated and costly training days.”
Ian Batchelor, Finance Director, Analox Group Ltd

Advanced Management Reporting in Microsoft Excel®

One-Day Intensive Workshop

with Glen Feechan

21st October 2008

You know that you have all of the information you need in your accounting and management systems, however every day, week and month you (and your team) spend time pulling it from different sources, tweaking it and presenting it in a format that you (and the rest of the management team) can use.

What if you had the skills to automatically populate your existing spreadsheets and/or create new ones that give you all of the information you need, in a few clicks, when you want it.

Glen Feechan is a chartered accountant and expert in this field. This one-day workshop is a rare opportunity to learn his unique approach to automating all of your reports (from simple sales reports to complex management accounts). This is possible, no matter what accounting and management software you use in your business.

For just £275 plus VAT per delegate, you will learn how to:

Interrogate your existing systems

Analyse the resulting data using lookups and pivot tables

Present it in any format, including your existing spreadsheets (no matter how complex), automatically

To find out more, call 0845 6439693 or email excel@feechan.co.uk. Alternatively, please complete and return the BOOKING FORM.