Excel is the standard in business reporting primarily because of its many different reporting capabilities.  Excel offers not only visual aids such as charts and graphs, but also the capacity for operating with real time data.  This is an advantage no matter what type of report you are using, but we will look at a few other top options:

• Financial: Companies can use Excel to produce yearly, monthly, and daily financial reports in order to present the company’s earnings. This is an efficient way of communicating with executives and investors, particularly when combined with the use of real time data.  Excel also provides financial analysis to help companies track their financial progress.
• Accounting: Excel helps businesses track income and expenditures in an orderly fashion.  From yearly sales to employee expenses, there are reports for every accounting need.
• Sales: Excel is extremely useful in keeping track of inventory, sales, and payroll.
• Education:  Teachers and administrators can use Excel for tracking grades, extracurricular activities, disciplinary issues, and awards received.  This helps schools better meet their students’ needs overall.

The scope of Excel’s audience is broad because the program is so versatile and works with a wide range of business types.  Every business such as a dry cleaner, restaurant, school, retail shop, and insurance agency can benefit from Excel.  From the smallest “mom and pop shop” to the largest corporation – everyone can benefit from Excel.

Need more understanding on how different types of Excel reporting can help you manage your business?  Visit the BizNet Software website for links to helpful videos and blogs detailing the company’s vast knowledge of the software industry.  Alternatively, for more information, you may visit BizNet on Facebook and Twitter to connect with other users and find out how BizNet can help your business grow.

There are those who think Excel is outdated, but they are clearly unaware of all the different uses for reporting with Excel. From sales, to trends, to accounting, to personal use, the possibilities are nearly endless. Here are a few of our favorite Excel uses:

• Keeping track of sales: By tracking sales, you can see patterns within your company. Even better, sales professionals can track their individual sales to see where they can improve their performance. With helpful charts and graphs, as well as spreadsheets, Excel is an extremely useful tool.
• Managing inventory: With a rudimentary understanding of Excel, you can create an inventory management system for your business that tracks stock in hand, while projecting sales and delivery times. This will give you better control over the reordering process, and make your inventory more efficient.
• Watching the trends: By tracking your own company’s sales, you can better plan for the future. By watching the market trends, you can stay ahead of the curve. BizNet offers software that allows you to utilize real time data in your Excel reporting, giving you a competitive edge.
• Managing your accounting: By learning to use Excel formulas, you can make the process of accounting much easier. Additionally, because so many people use Excel, it is easy to share information, or give multiple users access to documents, in order to keep records that are more accurate.
• Managing your life: Many people become so comfortable with Excel at work that they begin to apply it at home as well! From planning a family budget, to keeping track of your insurance information, to meal planning, there are a multitude of ways Excel can work for you personally as well as professionally.

Do you want to know even more about utilizing Excel reports for your business? BizNet Software helps you create and manage reports using real-time Excel data. Want to know more about reporting with Excel? Or do you have some of your own uses you’d like to share? Join BizNet Software on LinkedIn and let us know!

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about the cloud – what is it? What does it mean? But, more importantly, how can it help my business? Here are some key benefits of the cloud and how you can utilize it with Excel to make it even more powerful for your business. To find out how we use the cloud and Excel, visit our website.

BizNet Software, Inc., a leading provider of Microsoft Excel® based  reporting and analytics solutions,  won K2 Enterprises’ 2011 Quality Award  for Financial Reporting for a second straight year.

K2 Enterprises is the premier provider of technology continuing professional education (CPE) in both the United States and Canada. With seminars in over 46 states in 2010, 1,000+ presentations, special events, they are the largest provider of technology CPE in North America.

2011 represents the 10th year for the K2 awards and the second year Financial Reporting has been included as a category. Awards are determined by a poll of K2 Enterprises’ nine instructors, drawing on end-user feedback and their own consulting and teaching experience in ranking competing providers in each of 20 categories.

BizNet had earned previous recognition from K2′s executive VP, Randy Johnson. In the April/May 2010 issue of The CPA Technology Advisor, he named BizNet a “company to watch in 2010 and beyond.”  In an article entitled, “How to Get Great Reporting”, Johnson wrote, “The vision and roadmap of [BizNet] is brilliant, and the product can solve many problems of the market. This offering is certainly a viable alternative for FRx users and shows the promise of being a general reporting tool beyond the financial reporting that it already does well.”

“We are extremely honored to have won this award for a second straight year,” said BizNet president & CEO, George McMann. “K2 is one of the most respected and knowledgeable names in technology CPE, so earning their experts’ continued recognition is validation of our ongoing commitment to delivering the best in Excel®-based financial reporting and analysis tools. BizNet Software, Inc., leading provider of Microsoft Excel® based reporting and analytics solutions, announced today that is has won K2 Enterprises’ 2011 Quality Award for Financial Reporting for a second straight year.

With over 500 million users worldwide, Excel is the number one reporting and analysis software and is second only to email in daily use by companies worldwide.  However, many companies do not use this program for anything other than reports and analysis; they choose other solutions for business tools, such as executive dashboards.   By implementing a few simple ideas, you can begin creating interactive executive dashboards in Excel.

Interactive Executive Dashboards in a Familiar Format

Even advanced users are unaware of the many robust functionalities Excel offers.  By learning a few new steps within Excel, anyone in your company can create real-time executive dashboards in Excel, a program they are familiar with and understand.

Real-Time Data

Executives and managers need the most up-to-date information in order to make informed decisions.  By creating a dashboard in Excel, you eliminate the potential for lost data due to copying and exporting information between applications.  When you create a dashboard in Excel, you eliminate redundancy and speed up the transfer of data between parties.

Reading between the Lines

When a problem is being addressed, business decision makers need to know more than just the surface data.  True, they need to see the bottom line numbers, but they also need to see the data used to arrive at those bottom line numbers.  For this reason, reporting and analysis software must be able to “drill down” into the information in order for executives to make an informed decision.  Using a dashboard in Excel allows company officials to “drill down” into the data without leaving the application.

New Features in Excel

Microsoft has added many new features making it much easier to create an executive dashboard in Excel.  With better graphing, formatting and data visualization capabilities, the program provides more than just reporting features.  In addition, data bars, color scales, arrow indicators, spark lines, data slicers and other visually appealing features have been added to increase the aesthetic appearance of the program and make it easier to create an appealing dashboard in Excel.

Creating an executive dashboard in Excel is the best way to reduce the possibility of errors and provide real-time data to the company decision makers using a program that is familiar to almost every business person in the world.  Do you need more help with utilizing Excel reports for your business?  Visit BizNet Software to learn how!