Excel All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 4

Finagling Financial Formulas

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using basic investment functions

Using basic depreciation functions

Using basic currency conversion functions

A killer app is a software program so good or so useful that it justifies the price of whatever platform it runs on. Back in the late 1970s, the Apple II computer found its killer app in the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. A few years later, the original IBM PC's killer app was the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software. Yep, that's right: The early history of personal computing was pretty much defined by people desperately wanting to digitize their company or personal finances.

Forty years later, nothing has changed. Sure, VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 have bit the digital dust, but folks like you and me still spend a ton of time wrestling with financial data stored in spreadsheets. Those spreadsheet financial models are now mostly stored in Excel workbooks. And no wonder: Excel not only lets you add, subtract, multiple, and divide financial values. but it also offers a sophisticated toolkit of financial functions. Excel’s financial prowess includes functions for determining such things as the present, future, or net present value ...