This post is written by Paramdeep.
Today, let us learn how to use NPV() function in Excel & create a simple financial model.
NPV – Introduction:
If you are dealing with cash and valuations, you are bound to have come across the NPV function. If you don’t know the assumptions behind the same, I bet it could cost you your job!
Let’s take a simple project – You buy a MSFT stock for USD 100. You receive a dividend of USD 10 in the first year, USD 20 in the second year, USD 40 in the third year and then you sell it out for USD 140. If you could have alternatively put this money in bank at 10% interest rate, have you gained anything?
How do you model this in excel? In this tutorial we understand how you can use NPV to do this analysis and what kind of pitfalls you can land into!!
What is the NPV() function
Simply speaking, NPV function calculates present value of your cash flows. Let’s take a simple example first –
You invest $100 in a bank, which pays 10% interest
- What is its value 1 year down the line?
- I am sure, you don’t need any coffee to get that value – 100 x 10% is the interest and 100 is the principal that you had. So the value 100 x (1+10%) = 110
- What about 2 years?
- Simple 100 x (1 + 10%)^2 = 121
- So, if I were to ask you, the present value of a cash flow of 121, that you were to get 2 years down the line at 10% interest?
- Again simple, you told me initially, it was $100
NPV does exactly that – gets you the present value of your cash flows
The function is simple, it does all the difficult calculations for you and gets you the solution!
Beware – The function has its own assumptions!
Though the function is quite convenient, but it has its own pitfalls. And in my modelling experience I have seen a lot of people making that mistake! Lets model the situation described in the beginning (The MSFT Case). The cash flows are given to you as:
Let us see, internally what we get by modelling the NPV from the first principles and using the NPV function
You can clearly see that there are two ways of using NPV function (and each has its own assumption!)
So what is happening internally?
Usually when we start a project, we assume that the investment is made upfront (On day 0). Then the revenues, costs and the cash would start flowing in. Since the investment is made on day 0, it should not be discounted.
But when you use the NPV function, excel internally makes an assumption that even the first cash flow is at the end of the year (Per se, this is not wrong, but in normal circumstances, you make the payment upfront!).
So the right usage of the function would be to add the first cash without discounting and then use the NPV function to discount the rest of the cash flows.
If you just use the NPV function on all the cash flows, then the inherent assumption is that even the first cash flow is at the end of the year.
Few other ways of calculating NPV
When you are dealing with cash flows and valuations (typically that is when you come across the functions like NPV, etc) even small mistakes cost dear. You want to make sure that you are as accurate as you can ever be. At that point of time, if the cash is not flowing at the year ends, you can use a more powerful function in excel – XNPV. You can show it the cash and the exact dates and it would calculate the exact NPV for you. People don’t often use it as they don’t know the exact dates of cash flow!
How do you calculate the discounted cash values in your models?
I know the easiest way would be to use the NPV function. It is easy to use but at the same time could be tricky. So how do you implement such functionality in your models?
Templates to download
I have created a template for you, where the subheadings are given and you have use the functions to get the right values for you! You can download the same from here. You can go through the case and fill in the yellow boxes. I also recommend that you try to create this structure on your own (so that you get a hang of what information is to be recorded).
Also you can download this filled template and check, if the information you recorded, matches mine or not!
For any queries regarding the cash impact or financial modeling, feel free to put the comments in the blog or write an email to paramdeep@edupristine.com
Join our Financial Modeling Classes
We are glad to inform that our new financial modeling & project finance modeling online class is ready for your consideration.
Please click here to learn more about the program & sign-up.
Learn more about Financial Modeling:
Go thru these articles to learn more about Excel Financial Modeling:
- Excel Financial Modeling – 6 part tutorial
- Introduction to Project Finance
- Using MOD() function to implement frequency escalation in Excel
- Creating a P&L Reporting Model in Excel – 6 part tutorial
The article is written by Paramdeep from Pristine.
Chandoo.org has partnered with Pristine to launch a Financial Modeling Course. For details click here.
24 Responses to “10 Supercool UI Improvements in Excel 2010”
The best improvement by far is the Collapse Ribbon ^ button !
Kind of a shame that some of the best improvements are actually returns to old functionality. One thing I don't like is that to get to recent files I need to do an extra click after File - apart from Save As, that's why I'm usually in the File menu. I like the sparkline options, though they are still as not fully featured as some of the free and pay options out there.
The collapse button for the ribbon menu is good news. Can you make the ribbon menus stick too?
Nine improvements, not ten. You can also select multiple objects in 2007. Click on the Find & Select item at the far right of the Home tab, and the dropdown looks remarkably like your 2010 screenshot.
@Jon.. Thank you. Dumb me, I somehow thought we couldnt select objects in Excel 2007. Just saw the "select menu" and it is there. I have corrected the post and removed the point. I have added the "you can make your own ribbons" instead. Thanks once again.
@Arti: what do you mean by make ribbons stick?
@Alex: May be it is my installation, but when I go to "File menu" I see "recent files" by default.
For example, if I am working with one of the contextual ribbon menus (Pivot tables, Drawing/Chart etc), as soon as I click away from the selected object, the menu tabs vanish. If I click on the object again immediately, then Excel will remember what I was looking at, but if I wander away and click on a Pivot, then back again on the Chart, the menus will 'appear' but not get activated, thereby causing much annoyance and additional clicking.
I want to "pin" the whole menu (not invididual commands) somehow, so that I can have the menu there for the length of the time I am working with graphics. Excel 2003 used to have the Drawing toolbar you could detach and hover while you were working, but this functionality disappeared in Excel 2007.
My thought was Excel should just allow a 'pin', similar to the Recently Opened files menu, for the Ribbon Menus as well. If I have not selected any Drawing object, the commands can be greyed out, but I want the menu as a whole to 'stick'.
@Arti... I think MS solved this problem differently. When I select a pivot and go to "design" tab Excel 2010 remembers this and automatically takes me to "design" tab when I reselect the pivot.
Apart from this you can also define your own ribbon with all the things you normally do. See the above article (I have added this after Jon's comments)
Nice feature. About time for a upgrade for MS Office
Oh... okay. That might be a start. I'd probably just copy-paste the Drawing tab haha. Thanks. I'll definitely give Excel 2010 a try.
Btw - have you considered getting into / gotten into the world of Excel as it meets SharePoint?
Actually, the replacement new thing is probably better than all the rest. One thing that the designers of the Office 2007 ignored was allowing regular users to customize their own interface. Office 2010's interface was expanded in this way to address the huge uproar.
Is there still a limit on how many things you can add to the QAT bar? (I'm too lazy to look myself.)
@Jeff.. it seems to take quite a few, but only shows one line and gives a little arrow button at the end. (summary: shucks!)
The best thing is you can edit the ribbon directly from excel, so now i can create my own bar with just the things I use regularly!
One of the annoying things in 07 for me is the Add-Ins menu bar - in 03 I could keystroke directly to menu add ins.. In 07 I needed an extra keystroke just to activate the add-in menu, then the keystrokes as normal.. Hope this marek sense..
John -
If you remember the old Excel 2003 Alt-key shortcuts, you can still use them in 2007. To get to the Add-In dialog:
Alt-T-I
Dear Arti & Chandoo
Seen your comments over some issues. Hope you are form India, gone through your comment expecting a pin to command it as a whole, great, hope if someone out of MS have read it, it may be kept in mind while the next R & D of Office Ver. 16
Just incase someone forgot CTRL+F1 will collapse the ribbon.
[...] was pleasantly surprised when I ran Microsoft Excel 2010 for first time. It felt smooth, fast, responsive and looked great on my [...]
I like the sparklines, and the ability to modify the charts
How do you get rid of the advertisment on the right hand side? If you upgrade then will it take off the ads?
Once again Microsoft has re-decorated the Office and we are NOT pleased!
The graphics object selector can be found in the Home ribbon under Find & Select, Select Objects near the bottom of the drop down. You can make it part of the Quick Access toolbar by right click over it and selecting Add to Quick Access toolbar.
The graphics "cursor" will now appear on the mini-toolbar at the top left of the window.
How to get rid of "Add-Ins" button in Backstage (File)" menu by means of XML code, i.e. to hide, to delete or to disable this button?
This button is usually situated in the Backstage menu between "Help" and "Options" buttons.
Vladimir, did you ever get an answer to your question?
I am tying to customize the ribbon UI for a file using XML, and this is precisely the piece I can't figure out. I can hide other tabs, remove items from QAT and backstage - all except the options that are showing up under add-ins in backstage. If there is an XML syntax for referencing this thing and making it invisible, I cannot find it.
Hey, nice tutorial. Please check my video tutorial on similar topic at the below link and provide your comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIFc0jYjpA