103.2 - Basic and Advanced Math
This page has the following sections:
- General Math Uses
- Formula formatting
- List of Functions for Google Sheets
1) General Math Uses
Spreadsheets have applications across the Math spectrum. All spreadsheets have built in graphing tools to turn blocks of data into graphs. There are a few other types of mathematical analysis tools like MathLab that are used for numerical analysis, but spreadsheets are by far the most common and the most widely used.
Navigating the small business world without an Intermediate or Expert level skill set related to Spreadsheets and Math is like trying to swim the English Channel with one arm tied behind your back.
If you are NOT very proficient with spreadsheets and their basic math uses, there is no better place to spend your time than building that skillset via some tutorial style practice. The amount of time and info that can be saved using spreadsheets for math is massive.
- Finance -- Spreadsheets are a critical tool for most folks involved in financial analysis. In addition to doing basic math, spreadsheets have full libraries of finance functions for all types of financial analysis.
- Accounting -- Spreadsheets most directly look like Accounting ledgers. There is no better system for general financial recording, analysis and reporting.
- Marketing -- Marketing often times involves data analysis related to product and service pricing, profitability and marketing campaigns.
- Management -- Management reporting almost always involve some type of quantitive analysis related to performance.
- Management Science and Operations -- Spread sheets are used for all types of data storage and analysis and statistics.
- Engineering -- Spreadsheets are key to almost all aspects of engineering analysis.
- Science -- Spreadsheets are used for all types of data recording and analysis
Navigating the small business world without an Intermediate or Expert level skill set related to Spreadsheets and Math is like trying to swim the English Channel with one arm tied behind your back.
If you are NOT very proficient with spreadsheets and their basic math uses, there is no better place to spend your time than building that skillset via some tutorial style practice. The amount of time and info that can be saved using spreadsheets for math is massive.
2) Formula Formatting
To enter a formula into a cell, you start the text out in the cell with an "equals sign". So if I want to add cell A1 and A2 together in cell A3, in cell A3 I'd type "=A1 + A2" (without the quotes).
Basic Arithmetic Characters
+ Addition
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
() Open and closed paranthesis are used for grouping as we were taught in middle school.
Colon
The colon can be used to aggregate cells inclusively. If I wanted to sum or average the values in cells A1 through A9 I could write "=sum(A1:A9)" or "=avg(A1:A9)"
With this, you have in fact learned a great deal about Formula Formatting, believe it or not.
The only big thing you are missing now are the magic keywords for the functions used as well as the input variables for some of the functions that are more complex in nature.
Basic Arithmetic Characters
+ Addition
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
() Open and closed paranthesis are used for grouping as we were taught in middle school.
Colon
The colon can be used to aggregate cells inclusively. If I wanted to sum or average the values in cells A1 through A9 I could write "=sum(A1:A9)" or "=avg(A1:A9)"
With this, you have in fact learned a great deal about Formula Formatting, believe it or not.
The only big thing you are missing now are the magic keywords for the functions used as well as the input variables for some of the functions that are more complex in nature.
3) List of Functions for Google Sheets
In addition to creating basic equations in cells, GSheets has hundreds of more complex math functions available for use in cells.
The link belowdetails 29 pages current GSheets functions. Many of these are math related functions.
The pdf below is a printout of this webpage.
The link belowdetails 29 pages current GSheets functions. Many of these are math related functions.
- https://support.google.com/docs/table/25273?hl=en
- (google: "Gsheets functions" if this link breaks)
The pdf below is a printout of this webpage.