Spreadsheet Modelling
Working in the IT Industry
Aim and purpose
This unit aims to enable learners to use complex spreadsheet modelling in order to support organisational
activities such as credit control, sales forecasting and stock analysis.
Unit introduction
Spreadsheets are key software for many businesses and organisations, helping them to keep track of
numerical information and analyse it quickly and more easily than with paper records. Accounting and finance use spreadsheets to record the transactions made by organisations. They have replaced manual pages in ledgers, where income and expenditure are organised into rows and columns. Users can make use of inbuilt functionality to help them to understand the data without needing specialist mathematical skills.
Utilities such as ordering, sorting and filtering will show the same data in different ways. Charts and graphs
help to display information more visually. Complex calculations can be carried out using library functions or
users can choose to create their own formulae.One of the main advantages of spreadsheet software is that it can be customised with buttons and macros. IT practitioners can use many features, for example to restrict user access to whole workbooks, spreadsheets or parts of spreadsheets.
Spreadsheets can be saved in a number of different formats. The most useful format is comma separated
value (csv), as this particular format can be read by many applications which means that data created in one
type of spreadsheet software can be exported easily to other programs. This technology enables organisations
to be more knowledgeable about their own activities. This, in turn, allows managers to make decisions more
quickly which can lead to organisations gaining competitive advantage. As IT practitioners, learners will need to be able to use spreadsheet software competently as well as being able to support users as part of a technical or helpdesk role.