Union of Investment Companies (UIC), through its training arm, the Investment Studies Center (ISC), organized a training program within the framework of its training plan for the year 2024, entitled "Excel for Finance" on 03rd & 04th November 2024, at UIC premises.
Mrs. Fadwa Darwish – UIC Secretary General, stated that this program came in implementation of the Union's strategy that aims to contribute to improving the efficiency of professional and functional performance of workers in the investment and financial services sector by providing specialized and distinguished training programs.
The program targeted financial professionals, to support them in developing and enhancing their skills in financial analysis using Excel, and acquiring new tools that enable them to improve their efficiency and speed of making financial decisions through advanced Excel techniques.
The first day of the program witnessed the presentation of important basics and skills aimed at facilitating the processing and analysis of financial data. The program began with "conditional formatting" techniques, where participants learned how to format cells dynamically based on their values or other values, which contributes to facilitating the reading and analysis of data. The program then delved into the use of "general functions" such as SUM, IF, VLOOKUP, and other functions that help simplify calculations and manage data effectively.
The program also included advanced "mathematical functions" such as CEILING, FLOOR, ABS, ROUND, and others that are used to adjust arithmetic values and improve the accuracy of financial operations. The program also touched on a group of "date functions" such as EOMONTH and YEARFRAC, and others that contribute to organizing dealing with dates and calculating time periods between multiple dates, which supports the temporal analysis of financial data. To provide participants with additional skills, they were introduced to advanced functions such as ISNUMBER and ISTEXT and how to integrate them with IF to develop analytical tools that go beyond traditional standards.
In addition, the program covered methods for dealing with "formula errors" such as #Ref and #Div/0! And how to deal with them effectively, and provided an overview of "financial functions" such as PV, FV, NPV and IRR, which are commonly used in financial analysis to make investment decisions, and participants learned how to create multiple reports using "Pivot tables" to be able to display different aspects of data within a single report, in addition to data control tools that include text conversion, removing duplicates and specifying the types of data allowed, and the first day concluded with a session on "graphical analysis" that helped participants create visual representations of their data using charts, along with tips for protecting files and securing data.
As for the second day, the program focused on advanced applications that give users greater power in financial analysis, and began with an introduction to "Power Query", where participants learned how to import data from multiple sources and format it to meet unique business requirements, then an introduction to "Power Pivot" that allows linking between data tables through relationships, in addition to creating performance indicators and measures using "DAX" to enhance analysis capabilities.
The program also included introducing participants to the "Defined Names" technology to facilitate the use of formulas within tables, along with "Formula Arrays" that allows calculations to be performed on multiple data sets simultaneously, and the second day concluded with an introduction to "VBA and Macros", where participants learned the basics of simple programming in Excel to increase the effectiveness of automated processes, and the program also reviewed the most prominent keyboard shortcuts to speed up performance and work efficiency.
The program concluded with a practical application, where participants participated in developing a sales control panel for a virtual company, which allowed them to apply the acquired knowledge in a practical way that enhances their understanding and supports their transition to the real work environment.
At the end of the program, the participants expressed their appreciation for this unique experience, stressing that the skills they acquired will help them improve financial analysis processes and speed up decision-making at work, praising the quality of the training content and its support for the needs of the financial sector.
Mrs. Fadwa Darwish concluded her statement by emphasizing the Union's commitment to its role in spreading knowledge of the latest methods and techniques that enable individuals in various sectors to develop their performance and improve their skills, which contributes to increasing the productivity of their institutions and achieving the goals of sustainable economic development.