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Financial
Analysis Software
Financial
analysis software usually is Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet
program. There is however other software specifically for analysis such
as Hyperion that is often used to merge information from several
reporting units.
The great thing about Excel is
that most everyone has it on their computer and are able to look at the
file you send them.
Regardless of the software used, it should provide the users with:
- A database to store data
- Formulas to manipulate data
- Functions that manipulate and report data
- Reporting features for a professional looking
report
A database function is necessary so that large or small amounts of data
can be stored. Information can then be extracted from the database as
needed. For example, if we have a list of names of people in
our college English class, and next to each name the grade point each
is receiving in the class, this is a simple database.
With formulas we can now easily extract information from this database.
The information may be the total number of people in our class, or the
average grade point.
With lookup formulas, we can extract a single piece of data from a
massive database, saving the time of search for it manually.
Functions allow us to more easily manipulate data. For
example a pivot table function will allow us to summarize large amounts
of data into a much smaller useful amount of data.
Finally, analysis software should have the ability to make a
professional looking report.