In a previous blog, I discussed how learning Microsoft Excel can really help with organizing your small business marketing plan. It is a great tool that can help you make the most of your data. Since I am still learning how to use it to its full potential, I included some helpful tips for beginners. For our 2nd blog about the wonderful world of Excel, we are going to learn how beneficial it is to use Excel for charts.
Your small business might collect a lot of data from multiple sources. Excel is an ideal tool to use to store and analyze all of this data effectively. There are many functions to choose from when working in a spreadsheet, functions that can be used for your daily business tasks, like displaying relevant business information. This is where charts come in. They are a visual way to sort, filter and display data. Visualization always adds something extra to reports, plus pie charts and graphs are a meaningful way to show data.
It can be difficult to find an easy way to store and organize data while being able to manipulate it, but with spreadsheets in Excel, you can! Spreadsheets contain rows and columns that are made up of cells. Each cell holds a single data value. The chart functions can be used to work with this data. Anyone can have access to these spreadsheets and are able to add or change data.
The charting tool can highlight a set of data and are able to display data in various types of chart formats. This is a great way to visually present a clear picture of data to better understand the data to analyze it to plan for the future.
With the chart function, you can generate a set of data into a chart and be able to transform the data without minimal input from you! It is easily to generate a chart in Excel with the option to choose different chart types with labels and titles.
Even though most of the chart function is automated, you can still customize charts to align with your local small business. You still have the ability to input data and control many of the different details in the chart. You can do this by first selecting a chart, then choosing options to change the data, chart type and more.
How to create a chart in Excel
- Select the cells you want to include in the cart (include titles & row labels!)
- Under the Insert Tab, choose Chart
- Next, select the chart type you would like to use from the menu
- The selected data will be inserted into a chart in your spreadsheet
Looking for help with your local small business marketing plan?
