Excel Assignment

ACCO 4050/5050
K. Rich

This assignment is designed as an opportunity for you to practice working with some of
the Excel skills that are useful in the real world. Furthermore, it is organized to reinforce
concepts from the data processing cycle surrounding data input (specifically data input
controls), storage, processing, and output. Make sure to do the steps under storage and
processing in order, because they presented the way they are for a reason.

Suppose that you are an accountant for Crunchy Granola Corporation, which uses an
Excel based AIS. The revenue cycle components are available in a file posted to D2L
titled “F24 Excel Data STUDENT.xlsx”. This file contains two tabs of transaction data
(sales journal, cash receipts journal), and two tabs of master data (inventory master,
customer master).

Recall from the Introduction to Processes section that journals are where transaction
details are entered – many transactions (such as sales, purchases, cash collections, and
cash payments) will have their own dedicated journals. In this case, you have
approximately 2 months worth of sales and collections data in the Sales and Cash
Receipts Journals, respectively.

There are also two separate tabs called “Correlations” and “Oil” that you will use to
work through some statistical functions but are unrelated to the previous analysis.

Your job is to use some of the features we discussed in lecture to a) demonstrate use of
basic functions in excel, b) improve internal controls within the system and c) enhance
the reporting capabilities of the system. If you have to deal with any kind of reports,
assume they are prepared at the end of month 10.

Important Note: A significant piece of developing proficiency in Excel is figuring out

what command/feature to use to solve a particular problem. Based on the demo we
covered in class, you have been introduced to just about everything you need to
accomplish the items below (trust me).

Required (to be turned in electronically via the D2L dropbox):

General

1. Save the file using the convention LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME.xlsx (.xlsm if you plan on
doing the macro)

Remember that the purpose of master data is to supplement transaction data to make
things like data collection easier. For example, suppose that you are a salesperson who
is entering the details of a sale of 1kg of Raspberry Muesli to an existing customer. A lot
of the details are going to be fixed – the pricing, the customer address details, the
Excel Assignment
ACCO 4050/5050
K. Rich

salesperson responsible, etc. Your goal in the next four steps is to put in functionality
into the data entry point within the sales journal so that once a product and customer
are chosen, all of the other necessary details are automatically populated directly from
the data in the master files.

2. Set up a restriction (in cell J1785) so that you are only able to enter in a sale to for a
minimum of 2000 items. What specific type of data entry control does this represent
(enter answer into cell H1787)?

Note that it may be useful to do points 3 and 4 at the same time

3. Set up row 1785 so that when you select a customer (in F1785) and product ID (in
G1785), the spreadsheet automatically populates product description, price, and
salesperson in the same row in the relevant cells directly based on your various
master files.

4. Configure your spreadsheet to display blank cells (in H1785 and I1785) for product
and price description if no product ID has been entered (in G1785), a blank cell for
salesperson if no customer number has been entered (in F1785), and a blank cell for
total sale when no quantity is specified (in J1785).

5. Configure cell L1785 to display “OK” if data has been entered for customer number,
product number, and product quantity, and “Not OK” if one of these fields is missing
data. What type of data entry control does this represent (enter answer into cell
H1789)?

Data Input

As mentioned above, after you have completed items 2 through 5, you now need to
enter the details of a sale into the system to test it out. Suppose you have the following
information about sale number “8390” – enter these details into row 1785 (which you
have just finished configuring). The only purpose of this exercise is to type in some
values to test that items 2 through 5 have been done correctly.

Team: NN
Sales date: Month 10, Day 31
Sales order: 8390
Customer number: 20
Product number: 202
Sales quantity: 9000 units

Data Storage / Processing

Excel Assignment
ACCO 4050/5050
K. Rich

For these items, delete sale number 8390 (the one that you just entered) after you copy
the table over for simplicity.

6. Copy the data from the sales journal into a new worksheet titled “Sales Filter”. Use
the AutoFilter function to display sales of product 206.

7. Copy the data from the sales journal into a new worksheet titled “Sales by Product”.
Use the Subtotals function to display a report of total units sold for each of your
products during the months provided.

8. Update your “on-hand” inventory for each item within the inventory master. Note
that you have been given beginning inventory in the inventory master file, and it is
safe to assume that Crunchy Granola did not produce or purchase any additional
units during these two months. Then use conditional formatting in the updated “on-
hand” field of the inventory master file to highlight the cell red for any items where
the current quantity of any particular product has fallen below 10,000 units.

9. Copy the data from the sales journal into a new worksheet titled “Sales by
Customer”. Use the Subtotals function to display a report of total dollars in sales
made to each customer.

10. Copy the data from the cash receipts journal into a new worksheet titled “Receipts
by Customer”. Use the Subtotals function to display a report of total dollars
received from each customer.

11. Create a new worksheet titled “AccountsReceivable”. Use data within your Sales by
Customer and Receipts by Customer worksheets to create a) a subsidiary ledger
outlining the outstanding balances for each customer as of the end of month 10, and
b) list the total A/R balance on the balance sheet as of the end of month 10. Note
that you will need to have one line for each customer.

Data Output

12. Create a PivotTable in a new worksheet titled “ProductAnalysis”. You want your
report to be based on sales data, and have product descriptions along the Y axis,
months along the X axis, and sale amount (in dollars) as the intersection. You should
also be able to modify the report by selecting individual salespeople. Also create a
PivotChart that shows these data in a bar graph.

Security

13. Create a password to protect your entire workbook, with the password “ais”.
Excel Assignment
ACCO 4050/5050
K. Rich

14. Lock the inventory master tab so that only sales prices cannot be changed without
the password “sp”. In other words, I should be able to edit any cells in the workbook
except the sales prices.

Statistical Analysis

The next three items require use of data in the “Correlations” tab.

You have gotten access to some monthly data for sales, returns (AR), and warranty
expense for a client. Your job is to use some basic statistics to evaluate whether these
reported numbers make any sense.

15. Use the correlation function to identify the relationship between a) Sales and
Warranty Expense (enter into J3), and b) Returns and Warranty Expense (enter into
J5).

16. Compile a forecast of September 2024 Warranty Expense assuming Sales of

$21,550,000 in J7, and a separate forecast of Warranty Expense assuming Returns of
$3,050,000 in J8.

17. Why do you think these forecasts are different? Provide an interpretation, focusing
on which one is more accurate and why you think that is the case.

The final three items require use of data in the “Oil” tab. The “Oil” tab includes monthly
historical data for the price of oil between January 2012 and July 2024 (Source
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RWTC&f=M). Think of
a company that is likely sensitive (or not sensitive) to the price of oil. Enter the name of
your company into F3, and the ticker symbol into F4.

18. Use a financial website (I use http://finance.yahoo.com) to obtain month-end stock

prices for your company. Insert these values into the “Oil” tab next to the oil price
(in Column 3).

19. Calculate the correlation coefficient between the price of oil and the company you
chose, and place it in F6.

20. Insert some commentary as an interpretation of your results in the provided box.
You should be explaining what the correlation coefficient you found means (do the
columns move together, or in opposite), and why you think that happened.

21. BONUS – I will award an extra point to your score if you are able to write a macro
that helps facilitate creating a new customer (i.e. a row) within a new sheet called
Excel Assignment
ACCO 4050/5050
K. Rich

“Macro” (not the CustomerMaster) and randomly assigns one of the three
salespeople to them. You will have to modify the code that I provided to you. Assign
the macro to a button that has the text “Add New”.