Microsoft Excel is about numbers, formulas, and calculations. It’s one of the most powerful applications Microsoft has ever developed.

But no matter how long you’ve used Microsoft Excel for Windows, you’ve probably developed habitual methods of doing things in worksheets, things that relate to how your numbers and cells are managed. Often, the methods you use don’t represent the most efficient solutions.

Here, then, are some great tips that can improve your productivity by speeding up common and uncommon operations in Excel. These tips work in all versions of Excel. Read more...

Not everyone uses QuickBooks. But small businesses still need to send invoices. If some of your clients aren’t ready to automate their entire financial operations but want an alternative to Word and Excel for invoices, there are myriad options.

These applications are Web-based, easy to use and in some cases, free. The advantages of using them are obvious. Your clients can not only create customized invoices but easily e-mail them and track their progress. They can stay in touch with receivables anywhere there’s a Web connection, including an iPhone in some cases. And when they’re ready to move up to a full-fledged accounting solution, they have reliable A/R records.
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You probably touch almost every screen of your tax and accounting applications, but you may not use more than about 10 percent of Microsoft Word. Word has become a monster, a terrific tool for page designers, but way too much for most of us.

Still, Microsoft Word is a mainstay application for almost everyone. It can do just about anything with documents you could ever want, but besides not using the lion’s share of it, many people don’t use it in the most efficient way. The tips below, which apply to all versions of Word from 2000 on, will help you work faster, smarter, and simpler with Word.

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