Excel I

CS 102

May. 2, 2003

Some of these exercises require pre-existing Excel documents. These documents may be found on the class Web page, under the ``Labs'' heading. As usual, right-click on the document name and save it to your G: drive. At the end of the lab save your work --- we'll be coming back to these documents in later labs.

Exercises

1. The underbid.xls workbook was the last assignment completed by your predecessor prior to his unfortunate dismissal. The worksheet contains a significant error, which caused your company to underbid a contract and assume a subsequent loss of $100,000. As you look for the error, don't be distracted by the attractive formatting. The shading, lines, and other touches are nice, but accuracy is more important than anything else. In one of the cells of the spreadsheet, write an explanation describing the nature of the error. Include suggestions on how to avoid mistakes of this nature in the future.

2. As you probably already know, you must budget for the amount of money you can spend on entertainment each semester. To help you budget for entertainment, create a sample worksheet that lists entertainment costs for six months in at least four categories. You might include categories such as hobbies, movies, concerts, videos, books, pets, CDs, or any other recreational expenses. Use formulas to find the total for each month's expenses and the total for each type of entertainment.
   1. Start Excel and use a blank, default worksheet.

   2. Enter the months as column headings and each type of entertainment as row headings. Use a column for the total to the right of the months and a row for the total below the entertainment categories. Enter the values spent for each month and each category.

   3. Create the total formulas and copy them to the other cells in the total row and total column.

   4. Save the file as budget.xls.

   5. E-mail a copy of your worksheet to me as an e-mail attachment.

3. As the owner and business manager of Sound Byte Music, you may need to travel to other cities to attend music industry conventions, purchas new inventory, promote the store, or meet with business associates.

   When you travel on business, you keep a travel log of mileage so you can claim travel expenses as a tax deduction. Using the file travel.xls, complete the travel expenses worksheet by creating formulas and copying them to the appropriate cells.