Short course
Advanced Excel for accounting
Many small organisations keep their accounts on spreadsheets, and will continue to do so. The problem is not the tool but the way it is used: sheets piled up with no logic, totals typed in by hand, balances that reconcile with nothing, and a year-end close that takes three weeks because nobody can find the supporting document.
- Duration
- Short module, 5 sessions of 3 hours, 15 hours
- Format
- In person or online
- Credential
- Certificate of attendance
Tuition75,000 XOF
By the end of the programme, you will be able to
- Set up a chart of accounts compliant with the revised SYSCOHADA in a workbook
- Keep a single journal with balanced entries that are checked automatically
- Produce a general ledger and a trial balance without typing a single total by hand
- Check the balance of debits and credits at all times
- Carry out a reliable monthly bank reconciliation
- Track customer and supplier accounts, due dates and unpaid invoices
- Keep a fixed asset register and calculate depreciation
- Handle petty cash, advances, imprest accounts and supporting documents
- Calculate and track value added tax and periodic returns
- Produce a simplified balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement
- Use artificial intelligence to write, explain and check accounting formulas
- Have a bank statement turned into entries, then check every line
Who it is for
Target audience
The module is for people who produce or review accounts: accountants and accounting assistants, administrative and finance managers, managers of SMEs and cooperatives, association treasurers, project and NGO accountants, business owners, accounting and management students.
Prerequisites
Two requirements:
- Know the basic accounting concepts: debit, credit, account, journal, trial balance
- Have a laptop, or rent one from the centre for the duration of the module
The module does not teach general accounting; it teaches how to keep accounts properly on a spreadsheet. Participants are invited to bring their own entries or statements: the workbook built in class is their own.
Detailed program
5 sessions · 15 h of teaching
- The design mistakes that make spreadsheet accounting uncontrollable
- The chosen architecture: settings, chart of accounts, journal, reports, checks
- The revised SYSCOHADA chart of accounts, its classes and setting it up in a dedicated sheet
- Coding third-party subsidiary accounts
- Account drop-down lists and preventing entry of a non-existent account
- Accounting formats, displaying amounts and handling cents
- Structured tables, named ranges and absolute references
- The permanent control sheet: balance, unassigned accounts, duplicates
- Protecting formulas and separating input areas from calculated areas
- Exercise: build the framework of your accounting workbook and your chart of accounts
- The single journal: structure of an entry line and its supporting document
- Assisted entry, with real-time balance checking
- Standard entries saved as reusable templates
- The general ledger produced automatically by formulas, account by account
- The general and subsidiary trial balances, without a single typed total
- Running balances and matching entries
- The conditional calculation and lookup functions that do all the work
- Pivot tables as an accounting control tool
- Finding an entry, a document or an amount in a large journal
- End-of-period checks and the checklist before the monthly close
- Exercise: enter a full month of entries and produce the ledger and trial balance
- Importing a bank statement and formatting it for use
- Bank reconciliation: method, presentation and differences to justify
- Tracking customer accounts: invoicing, receipts, aged balance, unpaid invoices
- Tracking supplier accounts: commitments, due dates, payments
- Automatic reminders using conditional formatting and due date calculation
- Petty cash, advances, imprest accounts and justifying expenses
- The fixed asset register and calculating straight-line and declining-balance depreciation
- The depreciation schedule and the year's charges
- Value added tax collected, deductible and payable, and the periodic return
- Other withholdings and current taxes to track in the workbook
- Exercise: reconcile a real bank month and produce the customer aged balance
- Year-end work: stocktaking, adjustments, prepaid expenses and deferred income
- Provisions, impairments and how to record them
- The post-closing trial balance and the final balance check
- Building the balance sheet by automatically grouping accounts
- Building the income statement and calculating intermediate management balances
- The simplified cash flow statement
- Useful management ratios: margin, profitability, liquidity, debt, payment periods
- A one-page accounting dashboard for management
- Structure and trend charts, and the readability rules to follow
- The closing file and archiving supporting documents
- Exercise: produce the balance sheet, income statement and dashboard for a full financial year
- What artificial intelligence brings to an accountant, and the limits never to cross
- Confidentiality of accounting data and what should not be sent to an external service
- Having a complex accounting formula written and explained, then checking it yourself
- Having a broken formula fixed and understanding the proposed correction
- Having a bank statement or a list of expenses turned into accounting entries
- Checking a proposed posting line by line, because responsibility remains with the accountant
- Having the right posting found for an unusual transaction, then validating it
- Having inconsistencies detected in a journal: duplicates, outlier amounts, unlikely accounts
- Having the notes to the accounts and the management commentary drafted from your own statements
- Producing an explanatory note for a non-accountant manager or donor
- Automating reminders to late customers and the monthly sending of statements, without programming
- The audit trail: recording what was produced with assistance and what was checked
- Final exercise: finalise your accounting workbook, produce your statements with commentary and present them to the group
- Presentation of attestations
Assessment and certification
The training attestation is issued to participants who have attended at least four of the five sessions and submitted their finalised accounting workbook. It states the module title, the 15-hour duration, the dates and the skills acquired, and carries a unique number with a verification code.
Participants also receive:
- The accounting workbook they built
- A complete model accounting workbook: chart of accounts, journal, ledger, trial balance, statements
- A fixed asset and depreciation tracking workbook
- The complete course material in PDF, session by session
- A quick reference of Excel formulas useful in accounting
- A library of ready-to-use prompts for artificial intelligence assistants
- A monthly and annual closing checklist
Upcoming sessions
Next dates being prepared
Leave your email: we will let you know as soon as registration opens.
Frequently asked questions
75,000 XOF per participant. Training for a team or an organisation is quoted on request.
5 sessions of 3 hours, 15 hours.
Yes: you can attend onsite or online, as you prefer.
Two requirements: know the basic accounting concepts: debit, credit, account, journal, trial balance ; have a laptop, or rent one from the centre for the duration of the module ; the module does not teach general accounting; it teaches how to keep accounts properly on a spreadsheet. Participants are invited to bring their own entries or statements: the workbook built in class is their own.
A certificate of attendance is issued at the end of the course.
Fill in the online enrolment request: no payment is taken on the site. The firm reviews your application, then contacts you to confirm your place and the payment terms. No session is scheduled yet: leave your email on this page to be told when registration opens.
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Cohorts are deliberately small to guarantee genuine individual support. Reserve your place or ask us your questions.