As an auditor, Excel is likely your go-to tool for daily work. Almost all Auditors I know admit to having dozens of Excel instances open every day. But are you using Excel to its full potential? Like any profession, mastering your tools will get you ahead and many auditors who waste hours on manual tasks that could easily be automated or simplified with the right techniques.
Here we explore 10 essential Excel tricks that every auditor should know to save time, improve accuracy, and stay ahead of the curve! Plus, we’ll introduce you to a tool that can take your audit workflow to the next level and wow your workmates.
- Custom Formatting for Clarity
Let’s start with something simple, yet often overlooked. Custom number formats make your data easier and more user friendly to read. For example, display negative numbers in red and format dates to match your preferred style. It’s a simple tip which literally takes seconds to implement and will add to the professional look of your audit. Do this as standard with all your work.
How to Do It:
Select your range of cells.
Go to Home > Format Cells and choose the desired number format. - Keyboard Shortcuts to Save Time
Speed up your workflow by mastering shortcuts. If you can’t remember them, list them down somewhere easy to reference. The more you use them the more they will become second nature. Shortcuts drastically speed up production. Here are three to get you started.
Ctrl + T: Convert a range into a table.
Alt + =: Automatically sum a column or row.
Ctrl + Shift + L: Apply or remove filters. - Conditional Formatting for Quick Insights
Again, another simple yet effective practice is to highlight points of interest making it easier for the user to read. Automate highlighting discrepancies or trends in seconds with Excel’s conditional formatting feature. For instance, use conditional formatting to flag duplicate entries or outliers in financial data.
Example:
Highlight your range.
Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules > Duplicate Values. - Using PivotTables for Quick Summaries
PivotTables are massively powerful and lifesavers when analyzing large datasets. They allow you to summarize and categorize data without complex formulas and let you refresh if your raw data changes – so you only do the work once. You should learn how to use these and insert them wherever appropriate.
How to Create One:
Select your data.
Go to Insert > PivotTable and drag fields into rows, columns, and values. - Data Validation for Accuracy
This is a big one! Prevent errors by restricting data input in specific cells. We have all created an awesome spreadsheet only for some user to come along and break it by inserting some invalid entry into a vital cell. It always seems to break so much more than intended too! Get around this by getting used to restricting data input (or using things like drop down lists where appropriate). For example, you can ensure that only numbers within a certain range are entered. Thank us later!
How to Set It Up:
Go to Data > Data Validation and define your criteria.
Checkout more Excel Validation Tips - Audit Tickmarks for Professional Documentation
Tickmarks are essential for documenting audit work, but creating them manually in Excel can be tedious and time consuming. Having a specialist toolbar is a cheap and effective way of saving time and standardising your work.
Solution:
The Audit Tickmark Toolbar simplifies this process by adding pre-designed tickmarks directly to your Excel sheets, saving you hours of manual work and giving your work that professional touch.
Discover how the Audit Tickmark Toolbar can improve your audit workflow. Click here to learn more. - VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP for Efficient Lookups
There are many functions in Excel to master but as an auditor, here are two you need to be familiar with. Quickly find values in a dataset with these formulas:
VLOOKUP: For vertical lookups.
XLOOKUP: A more powerful version that handles both vertical and horizontal lookups. - IFERROR for Cleaner Formulas
No one likes to see errors in a spreadsheet. Even if they are valid it just looks messy and unprofessional. To the untrained eye, it looks like something is inherently wrong or broken. So stop displaying messy errors in your worksheets by wrapping your formulas in an IFERROR function.
Example:
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A2, B2:D10, 2, FALSE), “Not Found”) - Protecting Sheets and Workbooks
Similar to tip 5, you will thank us later for this one. All the pro’s do it and for good reason. Safeguard sensitive data by protecting sheets or workbooks with passwords. Don’t let someone edit your spreadsheet who may not realise they are inadvertently breaking something else with their simple amendment. Better they come to you or require a password so they know they are meddling in something important and need to think through the consequences.
How to Protect a Sheet:
Go to Review > Protect Sheet and set a password. - Automate Repetitive Tasks with Macros
Macros can automate repetitive tasks, like formatting or data extraction, with just one click.
How to Record a Macro:
Go to Developer > Record Macro, perform your task, and stop recording.
Get started by opening the VBA editor and have a play. It is powerful stuff and worth getting familiar with how macros work (and more importantly, how they can work for you!)
Conclusion: Take Your Audit Workflow to the Next Level
By mastering these Excel tricks, you not only save time but also improve the quality of your work. But why stop there?
With tools like the Audit Tickmark Toolbar, you can take efficiency to a whole new level by automating one of the most time-consuming parts of the audit process and making your work look super professional at the same time.
Ready to transform your audit workflow? Try the Audit Tickmark Toolbar today.
We hope some of these tips make it into your daily workflow. They all incrementally improve your audit skills by a small amount but when added together, help make a huge difference to your perceived proficiency, the quality of your work and save you significant time getting the job done. Good luck and happy auditing.
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