Implementing Excel Spreadsheet Internal Controls

Author: David H. Ringstrom

In this empowering course, Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, discusses how to use internal control features and functions within Excel spreadsheets. He explains how several Excel features—Data Validation, Conditional Formatting, and hide and protect features—can be implemented to control users’ actions and protect your worksheets and workbooks from unauthorized changes.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2021, 2019, 2016 and earlier) during the course as well as in his detailed handouts. David also provides an Excel workbook that includes most of the examples he uses during the course.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that provides new feature updates as often as monthly. Conversely, the perpetual licensed versions of Excel have feature sets that don't change. Perpetual licensed versions have year numbers, such as Excel 2021, Excel 2019, and so on.

Publication Date: September 2023

Designed For
Practitioners who develop spreadsheets for others and want to learn how to prevent unauthorized changes from being made.

Topics Covered

• Creating resilient SUM functions that won't break when users insert additional rows
• Creating self-expanding drop-down lists with Excel's Data Validation feature
• Ensuring proper VLOOKUP integrity by using Data Validation to create an in-cell drop-down list
• Future-proofing VLOOKUP by using Excel's Table feature versus referencing static ranges
• Identifying situations where VLOOKUP may return #N/A instead of a value
• Improving the integrity of spreadsheets with Excel's VLOOKUP function
• Limiting users to entering whole numbers in a worksheet cell by way of Data Validation
• Overcoming VLOOKUP's quirks by using the SUMIF function to look up numeric values
• Preserving key formulas using hide and protect features
• Protecting hidden sheets from within a workbook
• Protecting sensitive information by hiding formulas within an Excel workbook
• Removing the Table feature from Excel spreadsheets once it's no longer needed or simply erasing the alternate row shading

Learning Objectives

• Recognize and apply lookup formulas to find and access data automatically from lists
• Identify how hide and protect features can be used to preserve key formulas
• Describe how to use Excel's Data Validation feature to restrict data entry to a list of permissible choices
• Identify the ribbon tab that the Data Validation command appears on
• Identify what SUMIF returns if it doesn't find a match

Level
Intermediate

Instructional Method
Self-Study

NASBA Field of Study
Computer Software & Applications (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
Previous Experience with Excel Spreadsheets.

Advance Preparation
None