Microsoft Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. With its powerful functions, Excel has been a very widely applied spreadsheet in many fields, this article shows some example on What is Microsoft Excel really used for?

1. Manage data records like name list

The commenly useage of Excel is to manage data records and name lists. You don't have to plan in advance on how the table should look like, as the preset layout alllows you to create the tables on the fly, just fill in the information, the table is developed on the go. Another more attractive point is that you have the ability to sort the list and filter the listing like a database tool. You can download the template of list.

2. Used as an analytical tool

Besides the good use on managing data, Excel is a great analytical tool for business. With the pivot table contained within Excel, you can easily analyse a large number of data, as the pivot table can automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table or spreadsheet and create a second table displaying the summarized data. It has gone through many revision. In each revision, we see its power being enhanced. In the latest version of Excel 2010, there are many new features added: It added almost six new caculations, a 'Show Value As' function and some great visual tools. Download this sales analytics if you need.

3. Create forms and consolidate results

You can use Excel to create not only a simple form that contains boxes, but also professional forms which include option buttons that allow you to select answers, dropdown list to select a particular answer from list of items. Together with charts, you can use Excel to compile answers to tests or quizzes and analyze the profile of the class (If you are a teacher) or your team (If you are a supervisor).

4. Corporate Budgeting

A major business application of Excel is in corporate budgeting. Many companies, from big corporations to small companies use Excel for their budgeting. Despite numerous calls by suppliers of Business Performance Management Systems (BPM) to move away from Excel as a budgeting tool, 70% to 80% of all corporations still use Excel as their primary budgeting tool. This is a marketing budget plan from Microsoft website.

5. Inventory Management

Excel provide many functions and formulas that will not only help you manage your data records efficiently but will also allow you to analyse your data based on your constantly changing business environment. Through the use of Microsoft® Excel formulas, you can create comprehensive drop down boxes to facilitate data inputs and reduce erroneous entries. And through the use of pivot tables, you could get a good detailed analysis of your stock movement and also your inventory level at any point in time.

6. Finding Profit Breakeven

Finding breakeven is never easy without using Excel. To manually find out the breakeven for a project, you have to perform many calculations using different numbers as it's inputs. And the calculation becomes even more complex if the components include fixed cost and step up cost. But with the goal seek function in Excel, this task can be completed in a few seconds. This template is for breakeven analysis, you can download it for use.