Microsoft excel use in business reports ; colgate 2011 annual report as a case study
Microsoft office excel is an important business or accounting related tool which is extremely flexible, powerful and easier to use so as to achieve different branded goals. This software has been in existence for over a decade and used by many both by business and non-business people to achieve various forms of functions. This tool help companies to do easy computation of their accounts so as to provide their financial reports. This is what most financial institution uses to provide the montly, quarterly and annual financial reports.
The document attached with this paper is a microsoft excel document from Colgate company. The company usually provides their business information with this type of documents. The document involve is for the 2011 annual financial report. This reports help highlights various aspects of the company's businesses which include the income statement, balance sheet, shareholders equity, comprehensive inc, cash flows and historical financial summary for the past years.
The purpose of this report is to allow investors the opportunity to understand the business activities the company engages in. As it is known that business information is somewhat complex due to various facgtors and accounting activities which it entails. Those accounting activities or information needs to be arranged and displayed in a precise but correct way for the company's investors to understand easily. This will aslo allows the investors to see the associated intricacies of the report.
Microsoft excel is a software with several capabilities that are used for various functional activities. One major capability of microsoft excel that was used in different aspect of the colgate 2011 annual financial is the mathematical functions which entails the use of the sum and subtraction to calculate various net balances and profits (Stephen, 2011).
Statiscal function is another important capability of microsoft excel and this was also used in the financial report. The importance of this function is in the aspect of calculation of various average entities or data relating to the income and expendituree by the company. This also help provide the information needed over a period of time.
The third important funcitional capability of microsoft excel thatt was used in the financial reprot of the colgate was that which is tagged the "information function". This involves placing different information in different cells so as to help provide a detailed info onn the calculated accounting data.
Some of the cells withing the financial reports that has formulas are F9, F16 and F19. Those cells are under the income statement colums of the financial report. The three cells highlighted make use of mathematical functional componets of 'SUM'which enables proper addition with limited errors. There are several other forms of functions or formulas within other cells and colums that are also used in this colgate financial reports.
The above information regarding colgate 2011 annual report has helped depicts the importance of microsoft excel in business accounting information. the simplicity and flexibility of the use of the software has helped in the adoption by many financial institution or businesses.
References
Stephen, (2011). Excel function in accounting, finance. Another day, Another digression. Wiki Research.
Retrieved 17, October, 2012 from http://www.stephenfrasier.com/blog/excel/excel-functions-used-in-accounting/
