Free email course
5 Days to Better Accounting Spreadsheets
Five short exercises on one month of a small business's books, with instant feedback on every answer. One email a day, about 10 to 15 minutes each. Free.
Would you rather look first? Try the first exercise now, no email needed.
Best on a laptop. On your phone? Leave your email now and open day 1 on your computer later.
Not sure where you stand? Take the 12-minute month-end check, no email needed.
What you will do
- Day 1: Clean a transaction exportYou finish with: consistent dates, amounts and references.
- Day 2: Match transactions with XLOOKUPYou finish with: spot the transactions with no match.
- Day 3: Summarise with SUMIFSYou finish with: category and period totals.
- Day 4: Reconcile two listsYou finish with: explain a difference between books and bank.
- Day 5: Add reconciliation checksYou finish with: a small summary that checks itself.
It is written for junior accountants, bookkeepers and finance staff who handle recurring reports, and for anyone who wants to practise the spreadsheet work accounting teams do every month. You do not need to be an accountant.
Questions
Does it cost anything?
No. The five exercises are free and stay free. After the five days you will get two emails about a longer paid course. If you stop part way, I may send one short note to point you back. You can unsubscribe with one click at any time, and the exercises stay open either way.
What do I need?
A web browser. The exercises run on this site and are marked automatically as you go, and they are built for a laptop or desktop screen. A downloadable workbook is there if you would like to try the same task in Excel itself.
How long does each day take?
About 10 to 15 minutes. You can stop and carry on later, and you can try each step as many times as you like.
What happens to my email address?
We use it to send you this course and the follow-up emails about the longer course. If you later start to join the longer course and stop, up to two short reminders may follow, and that is all. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe, and the privacy page has the details.
After the five days there is a longer course, Excel for Accounting: Month-End Reporting, if you would like to go further. There is no pressure to take it.