Course Introduction

Microsoft Excel is a powerful platform for analysing financial data and supporting business decisions.

This 1-day practical course is designed to help participants apply Excel in real-world financial scenarios such as evaluating loans, analysing profitability, preparing budgets, assessing investments, and analysing financial data using PivotTables.

The focus is on practical decision-making, not accounting theory. Participants will build simple, usable models and reports that can be applied immediately in the workplace.

This course uses features available in Excel 2016 and later.

Windows version of Excel is required.

The trainer will demonstrate all exercises using Microsoft 365.

Prerequisite

• Basic Excel knowledge (simple formulas and basic navigation)

Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Analyse financial data effectively using Excel.
• Evaluate loan and investment decisions.
• Understand cost, profit, and break-even relationships.
• Build simple budget and cash flow models.
• Apply What-If Analysis to financial decisions
• Analyse financial data using PivotTables.
• Generate useful financial summaries to support business decisions.

Course Benefits

Participants will:

• Gain practical financial analysis skills using Excel.
• Improve decision-making using data-driven insights.
• Understand key business concepts.
• Build simple financial models for real-world use.
• Apply What-If Analysis to evaluate different scenarios
• Summarise and analyse financial data efficiently using PivotTables.
• Turn detailed financial data into meaningful management information.

Who Should Attend

This practical Excel-based financial decision-making course is designed for:

• Finance and accounts personnel.
• Non-finance professionals involved in budgeting or decision-making.
• Managers and supervisors who analyse financial information.
• Business professionals who work with financial or operational data
• Anyone looking to improve financial understanding using Excel.

Teaching Methodology

• Step-by-step demonstrations
• Hands-on Excel exercises
• Real-life business scenarios
• Practical financial models
• Interactive discussions and Q&A

COURSE OUTLINE

MODULE 1: Loan Analysis & Excel Application

Loan Analysis

• Understanding loan structure
• Principal vs interest
• Monthly instalment calculations
• Using PMT to calculate loan repayments
• Understanding the impact of:
  • Interest rates
  • Loan tenure
  • Loan amount

• Application of Goal Seek & Data Tables for quick results

Loan Comparison

• Compare different loan options.
• Analyse total interest cost
• Identify the lowest-cost financing option.
• Evaluate the effect of changing loan assumptions.

Hands-on Exercise

✔ Build a loan comparison model
✔ Calculate monthly instalments
✔ Compare total financing costs
✔ Identify the most suitable loan option

MODULE 2: Profit, Cost & Break-Even Decisions

Cost & Profit Analysis

• Fixed vs variable costs
• Contribution margin
• Contribution margin ratio
• Break-even point in units
• Break-even point in RM
• Margin of safety
• Target profit analysis

Decision-Making Applications

• Effect of changing selling price
• Effect of changing variable cost
• Effect of changing fixed cost
• Determine sales required to achieve a target profit.

Hands-on Exercise

✔ Build a pricing and profit model
✔ Calculate break-even point
✔ Determine sales required for target profit
✔ Change assumptions and analyse the impact

MODULE 3: Budgeting for Decision Making

• Purpose of budgeting
• Budgeting process
• Master budget
• Linking operating and financial budgets

Operating Budgets

• Sales budget.
• Production budget
• Direct materials budget.
• Direct labour budget
• Overhead budget
• Operating expense budget

Financial Budgets

• Profit & Loss

Cash Budget

• Cash receipts
• Cash payments
• Credit sales collections.
• Supplier payments
• Financing requirements
• Cash surplus and cash deficit.
• Hands-on Exercise
• ✔ Budget vs Actual tracker
  ✔ Calculate and analyse variances of Cost & Profit
• ✔ Build a simple cash flow forecast
  ✔ Highlight potential cash flow problems

MODULE 4: Investment Decisions & What-If Analysis

Investment Evaluation

• Understanding investment cash flows
• Initial investment vs future cash flows

Basic Appraisal Techniques

• Payback & ROI

Discounted Cash Flow Techniques

• Net Present Value (NPV)
• Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
• Using Excel NPV and IRR functions
• Making accept/reject investment decisions
• Comparing alternative investments

What-If Analysis – Sensitivity Analysis & Scenario Manager

Sensitivity Analysis to Evaluate Risk– Assessing the Impact of Changes

Analyse how changes in key assumptions affect investment decisions:

• Selling price
• Sales volume
• Variable costs
• Fixed costs
• Investment assumptions
•  

Scenario Manager

Create and compare different scenarios based on alternative assumptions

Hands-on Exercise

✔ Build a simple investment decision model
✔ Calculate NPV and IRR
✔ Make an accept/reject decision
✔ Perform sensitivity analysis
✔ Create and compare alternative scenarios using Scenario Manager

MODULE 5: Financial Data Analysis Using PivotTables

Introduction to PivotTables

• Why PivotTables are useful for financial decision-making.
• Understanding PivotTable fields
• Rows, Columns, Values and Filters
• Summarising large financial datasets

Financial Analysis Applications

Sales Analysis Example

• Total revenue by store
• Revenue per customer
• Highest customer visits
• Monthly sales trends
• Identify high and low-performing areas.
• Slicers
• Refreshing PivotTables when new data is added
• Calculating additional values for analysis

Budget & Actual Analysis Example

• Summarise budget vs actual figures.
• Analyse variances by department
• Identify departments with significant variances.
• Hands-on Exercise – Financial Data Analysis
• Create a PivotTable to summarise financial data
  ✔ Analyse data across relevant categories and dimensions
  ✔ Analyse trends or comparisons using different PivotTable layouts
  ✔ Identify significant results, patterns or variances
  ✔ Use Slicers to filter and analyse the data
  ✔ Create a PivotChart to present key findings
  ✔ Prepare a simple management summary based on the PivotTable analysis