Introduction

There seems to be a distinct learning curve associated with Excel functions. Most people begin gently with the likes of SUM and COUNT and AVERAGE, and soon graduate to IF and VLOOKUP, and perhaps SUMIF and COUNTIF. And that, for many, is as far as they get, so once they start developing financial models they are overly reliant on this limited group of functions. The purpose of this chapter is to provide you with the twelve or so most useful functions for the general financial modeller. As with Chapter 3, we will look at some examples in the context of techniques combining formulae with functions.

The demonstration workbooks for this chapter are in the Chapter 4: Mainly Functions folder on the CD-ROM.

We can use the Shift + F3 or Ctrl + A shortcuts for function help. Remember that when writing a formula or function we can use F2 to change from Edit to Point mode and back again, and we can use this trick to specify ranges in dialog boxes.

In my years of teaching Excel functions I have found that many people find Excel function Help difficult to use, particularly with its explanations of function arguments and syntax. I take the liberty here of rephrasing some of these elements using expressions that my students have found more understandable.

Logical