Category: Excel

Want to include AI in your accounting course? 24 step-by-step tutorials and more…

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA5 Comments

AI is transforming how we work—and our students need to be ready to use AI in their future careers. As educators, we have a responsibility to help them understand how to use tools like ChatGPT responsibly and effectively. That means helping them see AI not as a shortcut or cheating aid, but as a tool that improves efficiency and enhances analysis.

Tracie Miller and I chose Excel as the foundation for teaching AI because most students already have a basic comfort level with it, which makes learning AI concepts more accessible. That familiarity makes it easier to focus on how AI can enhance what they’re doing—whether that’s generating complex formulas, cleaning data, or analyzing trends.

To help faculty integrate AI into their classes, we have created a set of free resources that includes:

  • 24 step-by-step tutorial videos showing how to use Excel’s built-in AI features or how to use ChatGPT to leverage use of Excel
  • Assignments for each tutorial, including both hands-on exercises and conceptual essay questions
  • Multiple-choice questions
  • Teaching tips, suggested solutions, and classroom activities like a Kahoot! quiz, crossword, and word search

For example, one of the tutorials included in the free resource package focuses on Excel’s built-in dynamic array formulas. Students are guided step by step through functions like SEQUENCE, UNIQUE, TEXTSPLIT, and TRANSPOSE—all of which allow a single formula to return multiple results that “spill” across rows or columns. The tutorial helps students understand how these formulas work, when to use them, and how AI features in Excel can make data tasks faster and smarter. It’s hands-on and gives students immediate opportunities to apply what they’ve learned in related Excel exercises.

All these materials are designed to make it easy to bring AI into your accounting course in a practical, structured way—whether you’re teaching Excel, accounting, analytics, or any business-related course.

Want access to all the tutorials, assignments, and the full instructor guide?
Click here to request the full AI+Excel resource instructor guide

The request form is quick – please use your school email address. Also – check your spam folder. We send out the instructor guide about once a week and a lot of times it goes to spam – so check your spam folder.

We hope you find the tutorials and related resources helpful.

Have a great day!

Wendy Tietz

New! Hotels and lodging ESG projects for introductory accounting now available

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment
ESG emblem

We are excited to announce that our new set of ESG projects for introductory accounting is now available. In these projects, students first review a quick overview lesson on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) accounting and reporting. Then students are given written ESG reports for three companies within the hotel and lodging industry. All reports are based on real-company metrics. Each report contains data covering one to three years for selected ESG metrics. The student will gather data from each of the reports to build a data set. This data set will be used to build charts to visualize the ESG metrics and trends. The student will then construct dashboards to compare the ESG profiles. Dashboards can focus on environmental, social, and/or governance metrics. The projects combine data gathering, data analysis, and ESG topics.

These projects provide an opportunity to introduce students to ESG reporting and how ESG metrics can add to an analysis of a company’s performance. These projects demonstrate that evaluating a business is more than just crunching the numbers or looking at financial statements. ESG reporting provides an additional lens for reviewing and evaluating a company.

There are a total of nine ESG hotels and lodging independent projects from which to choose:

  1. One online dashboard project (no software needed);
    1. Four Excel projects; and
    1. Three Power BI projects.

All projects include step-by-step tutorial videos, suggested questions, and solutions.

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To request the instructor guide that contains everything you need for all nine projects, please fill out the form at this link. We generally send out instructor guides once a week. Check your spam folder; often our emails go into a spam folder.

30-minute webinar on Tableau Prep advanced data cleaning project for accounting classes tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2, 2 pm – 2:30 pm ET

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment

Are you interested in data cleaning and visualization? Have you heard about Tableau Prep and/or Tableau and want to learn more? Want a ready-made project for your class that uses Tableau Prep and Tableau for data cleaning and visualization? We have developed a case that is suitable for accounting classes that uses Tableau Prep and Tableau – and we provide step-by-step tutorial videos, making it easy to use in your classes. We will also talk about for which classes this advanced project is suitable.

Join us on Wednesday, November 2, 2 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern, for a webinar on “ETL for accounting classes: Tableau Prep advanced project (KAT Concession Supply).” We will be covering how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more!

We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 2 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – you can register for this webinar at this link. The webinar will be recorded also.

To see all the webinars we have scheduled, see our website webinar page at this link.

30-minute webinar on Alteryx advanced data cleaning project for accounting classes tomorrow, Thursday, October 13, 11 am – 11:30 am Eastern

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment

Are you interested in data cleaning and visualization? Have you heard about Alteryx and/or Power BI and want to learn more? Want a ready-made project for your class that uses Alteryx and Power BI for data cleaning and visualization? We have developed a case that is suitable for accounting classes that uses Alteryx and Power BI – and we provide step-by-step tutorial videos, making it easy to use in your classes. We will also talk about for which classes this advanced project is suitable.

Join us on Thursday, October 13, 11 am – 11:30 am Eastern, for a webinar on “ETL for accounting classes: Alteryx advanced project (KAT Concession Supply).” We will be covering how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more!

We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 11 – 11:30 am Eastern – you can register for this webinar at this link. The webinar will be recorded also.

To see all the webinars we have scheduled, see our website webinar page at this link.

30-minute webinar on Excel advanced data cleaning project on Monday, October 3, 1 – 1:30 pm ET

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA2 Comments

Are you interested in data cleaning and visualization? Want a ready-made project for your class that uses Excel for data cleaning and visualization? We have developed a case that is suitable for intermediate accounting, data analytics, cost accounting, or other accounting major classes that uses Excel – and we provide step-by-step tutorial videos, making it easy to use in your classes.

Join us on Monday, October 3, 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern, for a webinar on “ETL project using advanced Excel featuring KAT Concession Supply.” We will be covering how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more!

We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern – you can register for this webinar at this link.

To see all the webinars we have scheduled, see our website webinar page at this link.

30-minute webinar on Tableau and Tableau Prep intermediate data cleaning project this Tuesday, September 20, 2 pm Eastern

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA2 Comments

Are you interested in data cleaning and visualization? Have you heard about Tableau and/or Tableau Prep and want to learn more? Want a ready-made project for your class that uses Tableau and Tableau Prep for data cleaning and visualization? We have developed a case that is suitable for introductory accounting that uses Tableau and Tableau Prep – and we provide step-by-step tutorial videos, making it easy to use in your classes.

Join us on Tuesday, September 20, from 2 – 2:30 pm Eastern, for a webinar on “ETL for introductory accounting: Tableau/Tableau Prep intermediate project (KAT Concession Supply).” We will be covering how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more!

We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 2 – 2:30 pm Eastern – you can register for this webinar at this link.

To see all the webinars we have scheduled, see our website webinar page at this link.

30-minute webinar on Excel intermediate data cleaning project for introductory accounting Wednesday, September 7, 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment

Are you interested in data cleaning and visualization? Want a ready-made project for your class that uses Excel for data cleaning and visualization? We have developed a case that is suitable for introductory accounting that uses Excel – and we provide step-by-step tutorial videos, making it easy to use in your classes.

Join us on Wednesday, September 7, 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern, for a webinar on “ETL for introductory accounting: Excel intermediate project (KAT Concession Supply).” We will be covering how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more!

We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern – you can register for this webinar at this link.

To see all the webinars we have scheduled, see our website webinar page at this link.

New! Intermediate Data Cleaning (ETL) & Analytics Project for Excel: KAT Concession Supply

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment

This project is one of ten projects in a set that focus on data cleaning and analytics. Read on for how to request this intermediate level project for introductory accounting that uses Excel for data cleaning and analytics.

A key step in data analytics is getting the data ready for use – in fact, this step can take more time and effort than the analysis of the data. This brand-new Excel project focuses on the data cleaning aspect of data analytics and is appropriate for introductory accounting – but could be adapted to any accounting class.

KAT Concession Supply is a fictitious company that supplies food, paper products, and other items to fairs, amusement parks, and other organizations. Information in the KAT Concession Supply data sets includes information about its sales over a three-year period. The data from KAT Concession Supply has errors and irregularities in it and it must be cleaned so that an interactive dashboard about its operations can be prepared. This Excel project is classified as intermediate because it takes about an hour to complete the entire project – the Excel is still doable for the introductory accounting student.

Complete step-by-step tutorial videos and an instructor guide are available to make project adoption easy and painless in accounting courses. The project is available at no cost for instructors to use in their classes.

Intermediate project for Excel

The data cleaning and other tasks in the Intermediate version of the Excel data cleaning project are:

  • Widen all columns to automatically fit the contents.
  • Find and remove duplicate records.
  • Remove spaces and nonprinting characters.
  • Convert dates stored as text to date format.
  • Find and replace text.
  • Split one column into two.
  • Change the case of cells.
  • Combine cells.
  • Convert text into numbers or currency.
  • Format numbers.
  • Correct spelling.
  • Create a three-visualization dashboard.

Tutorial videos/PDFs

Complete step-by-step instructions are provided for this project. Students have the choice of viewing the tutorial videos or downloading a pdf file of the annotated slides. The tutorials for this project have been split into several shorter parts. The project can be completed in shorter steps, rather than the entire project in one sitting.

***You can obtain the Instructor Guide for the KAT Concession Supply intermediate data cleaning project for Excel by requesting it at this link.***

The instructor guide contains the data set, solutions, and other information. The instructor guide also contains all the KATCS data cleaning projects released to date.

Give us about 5 – 8 days to respond – but check your Spam folder for the email if you do not see our email within that approximate time frame. (You may want to add drwendytietz@gmail.com to your Safe Senders list. Please don’t email to that email address – that is an email address used solely for distributing the project resources we have developed. Thank you!)

30-minute webinar on Excel data cleaning project next Tuesday, June 28, 11 am Eastern

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMA2 Comments

Greetings! Just a quick reminder that next week on Tuesday, June 28, we are hosting a 30-minute webinar on our KAT Concessions: ETL (data cleaning) for introductory accounting Excel beginner project – how to request the instructor materials, what the project covers, how you can use it in your own classes, and more! We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 11 – 11:30 am Eastern – you can register for this webinar and others at this link.

Hope to see you there!

Wendy, Tracie, and Jennifer

30-minute webinar tomorrow on KAT Mfg projects!

Dr. Wendy Tietz, CPA, CMA, CSCA, CGMALeave a comment

Greetings! Just a quick reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday, June 8, we are hosting a 30-minute webinar on our KAT Manufacturing data analytics projects for introductory accounting – how to request the instructor materials, what the projects cover, how you can use them in your own classes, and more! We will also answer any questions you have. The webinar is from 1 – 1:30 pm Eastern – you can register for this webinar and others at this link.

Hope to see you there!

Wendy, Tracie, and Jennifer