Welcome to FIN361: Financial Analysis and Modeling in Excel

Course Objectives

This course focuses on using Microsoft Excel to conduct a wide range of financial analysis and modeling that reinforces and extends students' understanding of fundamental topics in corporate finance that were covered in FIN 331. It concentrates on corporate finance rather than investments. It is a "hands-on" course in which students work directly in Excel to explore most of the powerful features of this and similar spreadsheet software. You will develop a valuable and marketable skill set that will serve you well in any career path that you pursue.

This course builds on the content of FIN 331 (Business Finance I) which is required as a prerequisite. It will also be helpful as a precursor or follow-up course for FIN 338 (Intermediate Financial Management) and will serve you well in any other finance course you take.

Above all, this course is intended to be practical, useful, and interesting. As with any course, what you get out of it will be directly related to what you put into it. If you take it seriously and work hard at it, you will gain some very valuable skills to take away from it.

After completing this course, you student should be able to:

• Understand and be able to use Microsoft Excel with a moderate to high level of proficiency for financial analysis and for other purposes
• Know how to compose complex formulas and use the main financial functions in Excel
• Know how to properly employ layout and visual enhancement tools in Excel to produce spreadsheets that are professional in appearance
• Understand and be able to create a spreadsheet model for the basic financial statements, a cash budget, several time value of money problems, an interactive amortization table, a financial forecasting example, and a complex capital budgeting decision scenario.