MS Excel: what every accountant should know
Institute: ACCA
Event Date: 20/04/2010
Event Time: 6.00pm - 8.30pm
Event Venue: Molineux Conference Centre
Event Location: Wolverhampton
CPD: 2
With organisations placing heavy reliance on information contained in spreadsheets, the need for
rigorous spreadsheet models that may be trusted has never been greater. Yet – despite the best of
intentions – spreadsheets are often poorly built, over complex and difficult to review. Accountants
are expected to take particular responsibility for spreadsheets and yet often have little formal
professional training in their risks and potential pitfalls.
This presentation is designed to set out – in simple terms - what every accountant who needs to
trust a spreadsheet should know. Topics covered include:
• The problem with spreadsheets...and an accountant’s toolkit to help spot and fix them
• Principles of good design: how to spot where a modeller “must try harder”...
• Construction and coding: helpful, unhelpful and underused formulae
• “How wrong is my answer?”: approaches to effective sensitivity analysis
Speaker
Andrew Berkley ACA AMCT
Director
Ambitious Minds Ltd
Andrew first developed an interest in spreadsheets in 1987 (Lotus 1-2-3) but the interest became
serious during his time at KPMG Corporate Finance. Here, Andrew spent many long nights testing
highly complex financial models designed to support the pricing of 10 – 30 year PFI projects. He
soon developed a clear idea of good and bad spreadsheet practice.
Leaving KPMG in 2004, Andrew worked as a freelance accountancy exam tutor and delivered
courses across the country for students preparing for ACCA, ACA, CIMA, AAT and the Association of
Corporate Treasury. Working for Kaplan, Andrew developed and delivered a range of tailored
courses to corporate clients – including numerous hands-on financial modelling courses.
In 2009, Andrew became a director of Ambitious Minds Ltd.
Web Links:http://uk.accaglobal.com/uk/members/networks/regional/wmidlands/events/
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