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Best book for learning Excel formulas and functions. For beginners.
I have learned to work with formulas that do one thing. Maybe two. And people in this forum (and elsewhere) have helped me a few times with slightly more complicated formulas that do several things, nested formulas, etc. Often I take their ideas without really understanding the nuts and bolts.
I find I now need to learn how figure out how to create these more complicated, nested formulas on my own. Otherwise I will forever be coming to forum members with my hat in my hand and asking for help. And I am guessing people will tire of that.
Recently I had to create a Pro Forma for a business plan in order to apply for a grant. It was mammoth (to me anyway), ran over 70 pages and made projections ten years out for about 30 different revenue streams and cost of goods and overhead costs. If you know Pr Formas, this was a big one. It required some retrieving of information from a cell on one page and moving it to a place on another page, lots of percentage equations. But nothing crazy or too complicated, still pretty simple even if the architecture of the workbook was grander. But in creating these many interactive pages it finally came clear how powerful Excel is if you can harness that power.
The POINT: I have used quite a few personal finance programs over the lest 30 years. Quicken, Quickbooks (actually used it for my business based in NYC for many years from which I am now retired), quite a few others. I have never found one that works exactly like I want it to. They are either too basic and don't do enough or they are way over-the-top complicated and force me to do things I don't really need or want.
So now I want to create a personal finance program using Excel. But as I map it out, I am coming to see that the formulas I need will be more complicated than anything I have tackled before. I need nested formulas that can add or subtract from a designated cell based on what other cell in that row has information. And it has to recognize a code or color designation so that any entry will also appear on a separate sheet for that type of transaction (say gasoline or food). I would guess that for many of you this would be child's play but for me it represents quite a challenge—one I am looking forward to meeting.
Can anyone suggest a really good primer to communicate how to build more complicated, nested formulas that execute multiple tasks? But one that is written for someone who knows just enough to know what I don't know. I realize that what I want to do is not nuclear physics but, for me, it is still a little daunting.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
PS. I may still come in here and ask for help now and then. :-) I hope that is okay.
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