Financial Analysis and Modeling Using Excel and VBA

Chapter 10. Using the Financial Functions

Excel includes numerous financial functions. You can look at them as ready-made mini-models that you can build into your analysis and models. If they were not there, you would have had to create many of them on your own. So learning what is available and learning to use them well will save you a tot of time m doing your analysis and building your models.

In this chapter I cover the functions that you are likely use often in detail and list the others that you may use only in special situations. Instead of using Excel's alphabetical order, I have grouped them by use so that you can see at a glance what different functions are available for each type of use.

Do not look at these functions as "black boxes." As a finance person you must thoroughly understand exactly how a function does its calculations before you use it. Otherwise you may input wrong arguments, and even when you enter the correct arguments you may get wrong answers or not the answers you are looking for.

For a general discussion how to use Excel functions and install and use the Analysis ToolPak see the chapter on advanced Excel features.

ANNUITY FUNCTIONS

ANNUITY FUNCTIONS

Excel provides several functions to do different kinds of calculations for constant annuities, which you can use for both loans and investments. Constant annuities are equal cash flows (either all inflows or all outflows) that take place at equal time intervals. Constant annuities are governed by a set of four ...