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MS Excel

Get Ready For March Madness With Able2Extract 10

Basketball Slam Dunk

Microsoft Excel can be intimidating. True.  But a big pro is that it can be a life saver when wrestling with numbers and data.

Now, if you’re asking yourself when in the world would you have to deal with numbers and data, we have two words for you: March Madness.

March Madness 2016 is almost here and you can bet that everyone who doesn’t (or does) deal with data will be wading in conference standings and school stats over the next few weeks.

If you’re running a March Madness pool for your office, using MS Excel will be the best way to analyze, track and digest all the information you need to fill out your brackets and keep your pool in order.

Yet that’s only half the battle. The other half is getting that data into Excel. And this is where Able2Extact 10 can help you get everything in order.

Transfer Any March Madness Data To Excel

In Excel, you can streamline and combine any existing data you want to keep as reference or update as the tournament goes on.

Player and team data will usually be available in a downloadable PDF. But what if you have a Word file? A PowerPoint presentation? No worries.

You can get your March Madness data into Excel spreadsheets regardless of the format you have. Just open your file in Able2Extract 10 and select the content you want converted (a page, line or the entire file). Then simply click on the Convert to Excel command on toolbar.

Easily Convert Complex Team Information With A Few Settings

There are a lot of pain points associated with dealing with data when managing a pool—or several, one of them being the many different formats you have to consolidate and analyze. If you have differently formatted tables or statistical charts spanning pages, it can be a nightmare.

Good news is that you can tailor a PDF to Excel conversion according to the table structures in your file. Able2Extract has a few PDF to Excel conversion settings that make the job easier to identify and deal with the source document’s table structure. Select your settings before you make the conversion and you’re good to go.

Able2Extract Excel Conversion Settings

Customize Your Data Extractions Into Excel

You may also need specific data extractions for analyzing detailed statistics. For example, you may want to eliminate the data for lower seeded teams or scrape only the data from top teams in the last year to create your own shortlist.

For this, you can simply perform a Custom PDF to Excel conversion and filter out that information even before you even hit the Convert button. You can move rows, columns and even preview your conversion results to see if you have all the numbers you need in the right place.

Able2Extract Custom Conversion Interface

Convert March Madness Statistics In PDF to CSV

Which team you root for depends just as much on the numbers as it does on a team’s dynamics. But we’re talking about 68 Division I college teams plus stats on individual players, coaches and so on. That’s a lot of data!

It, thus, may be worthwhile to have database tools for March Madness. Or, if you’re tech savvy enough, you may have a tool or script that can crunch the numbers to predict the perfect March Madness bracket.

Able2Extract-CSV-Conversion-Option

In either case, you can get your March Madness PDF data into raw .CSV or delimited formats.  Just click on the Convert to CSV command in Able2Extract. It’ll get your data working with the databases and tools you already have in place.

Organize Your Data According To Worksheets

In some instances, you may have PDF data on teams all lumped into one single PDF with each team on one page or separate categories of data on each page.

It’s convenient for distributing and consuming the information, but hardly so if you want to separate that data. For instance, if you end up wanting to analyze each of the Final Four teams separately, you may want to organize and record each team’s information into separate worksheets.

Excel Single Worksheet Option

Now, you can go into your spreadsheet and move all your data around via copy-paste. But an easier way is to uncheck the Single Worksheet option in Able2Extract’s Excel/CSV Conversion Options before you make your conversion.

This will automatically convert each PDF page into a separate worksheet, saving you the hassle of doing it manually.

No matter what type of pool your group decides to set up, knowing your stats is essential. Whether it be analyzing wins, losses and odds or keeping track of results and pool entries, Excel will be your best bet. The key is getting that data set up properly for analysis. Hopefully a few of the tips above helped!

So with March Madness just around the corner, how are you filling out your brackets this year?

How to Export Tables From AutoCAD to Excel Format?

Part 1 of 13 in our How To Use AutoCAD series

When working with AutoCAD, you never work completely in isolation. AutoCAD workflows are always about collaboration, review and approval. As such, AutoCAD projects and designs will always be connected and work in conjunction with other formats.

More often than not, the detailed tables of information of a design will need to be either recorded, edited or entered into Excel spreadsheets. That being said, you’ll need to know how to get that table into Excel.

To export a table from AutoCAD and edit it in Microsoft Excel simply select the table, then right click and choose “Export”. The table will be exported in .CSV file format.

Next, right click on the exported .CSV file and from the options menu choose Open with Excel.

Opening CSV In Excel

Once the table has been opened in the Microsoft Excel, save it as an .xlsx file and you can instantly start editing the spreadsheet.

Improving Lean Document Management With Data Extraction

Successful Results Graph

In this day and age, the success of a company relies heavily on efficiency and productivity. As such, systems and services have been developed in order to cut down on waste and reduce the effort in managing workflows and document management. When reassessing the effectiveness of their workflows, companies across all industries use systems like Strength-based Lean Six Sigma.

With the level of data finance and compensation service companies handle, Strength-Based Lean and Six Sigma can work to improve the business process and records management.

What is Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma?

Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma is a system that focuses on assessing and identifying practices used within a company in order to improve it through methodical and active modifications. After best practices (and problems) are identified, steps are then taken to start restructuring the workflow according to the company’s goals and ideals.  Companies are then evaluated periodically to ensure the changes made are consistently effective.

This on-going process can show business owners where there are weaknesses, bottlenecks, and wasted effort in their system. As you can imagine, workflows that handle high volumes of documents daily require such evaluation to ensure data processing keeps going smoothly, accurately, and efficiently.  If not, business owners can then make adjustments accordingly in regards to both time and activity.

But working to apply that system to clientele data requires more than just a records management system. Companies like CM Global Partners specialize in applying Strength based LEAN and Six Sigma to sales compensation (Lean Sales Compensation).  As a consulting company, they assist in strategically planning and creating accurate sales compensation plans for their clients.

The Only Setback In The Workflow

However, in order to create customized Lean compensation plans for companies, they need to deal with the client’s information that comes in the PDF format, a locked down file format that prevents editing of any kind.

Consequently, they would extract the data manually by retyping scanned PDFs into Excel. They had used different software in the past, but needed accuracy. In addition, they needed a way of exporting their clients’ PDF data into Excel that would work with their system, Compensation Master. Their process always required the data to be audited and identical to data in the PDF file.

CEO CM Global Partners“We had an industry leading service,” says David Cocks, CEO of CM Global Partners, “Now we just needed a more efficient way to extract the data.”

Creating the most effective plans possible is CM Global Partners’ priority. So the company decided to invest in Able2Extract to help speed up the data extraction process. 

Using Data Extraction To Help With Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma

A case study was done to get a closer look at how and where Able2Extract fit in with their goals and workflow. Some of the benefits that resulted from their move to Able2Extract include:

  • $15,000 saved on average
  • 80% of time saved on data extraction
  • Streamlined their work almost instantly
  • Converted large sets of data in a matter of hours with extreme accuracy
  • Increased the productivity of everyone on the team

Efficient workflows need efficient systems. However, as CM Global Partners knows, these systems alone aren’t enough if they can’t bridge the gap between their system and their clients’ data. 

Read the full CM Global Partners case study to learn how the company successfully integrated Able2Extract with their Lean Six Sigma methodology.

Top Excel Tips For Data Analysts

Top Excel Tips For Data Analysts

It’s an obvious, well-known fact that data and business go hand in hand. You can’t manage one without affecting the other. And whether you’re analyzing a client’s data or using your company’s data to make executive decisions, your tools have to be able to handle the tasks you perform with that information.

For instance, if you’re a data analyst, most of the time you go through these stages of data analysis:

  1. Data Cleaning: Transform and rearrange the data in a way suitable for data analysis
  2. Data Analysis: Perform the necessary calculations to extract useful information
  3. Data Visualization: Use graphs or other type of visualization technique to show your results

While these may be impossible to handle manually, they’re perfectly manageable with Microsoft Excel. The application is advanced yet user friendly enough for the average user.

However, the tricky part you probably struggle with is knowing how to access and apply the right functionalities to your data. Well, it’s time to stop the struggle.

In this post, I’ll show you some Excel tips you can use at each of the data analysis stages.  Click through to jump to a specific section or tip.

Continue reading →

Why Accounting Firms Need A Document Management System

Performing Manual Calculations

For any financial services company, a client’s financial data is at the heart of its operations. As such, it becomes crucial for them to invest in a document management system and all the tools and processes it entails.

Underscoring this fact, CPA Practice Advisor outlines a number of pros and cons for having a paperless office with a document management system in place. As expected, the benefits presented by the pros outweigh, by far, the struggles imposed by the cons.

A document management system can drastically improve the workflow for accounting firms and clients alike.  

For one thing, it saves business costs on paperwork. Businesses and customers can reduce paper dependency, ultimately making documentation, transactions and records easily accessible online.

For another, it allows companies to automatically create an electronic audit trail that can keep documents accurate and in compliance with industry standards. Document workflows can be set up and incorporated into daily processes, making routine procedures easy for accountants.

However, one important caveat to keep in mind is that simply having a document management system in place doesn’t mean your workflow is fool-proof. Depending on the dynamics of your clientele and your document processing routine, your needs can shift and change from day to day. In fact, companies that incorporate document management systems can still struggle.

CFO Momentum
Momentum, a renowned financial and credit services  company, is one such example. They keenly  felt the affects of a document management system that quickly became inadequate. “Our working volumes grew exponentially and then came to a point where the manual process no longer made any sense,” Riaan Verbeek, CFO of Momentum explains.

Turning A Flawed Document Management System Around

As one of the leading services in the area of financial advising, insurance, investment and health, Momentum had client data already digitized in the PDF format. But there was a weakness in their document management system.

The company quickly found that they needed a dedicated PDF to Excel converter in order to improve, complete and streamline their document management system.  They needed to efficiently extract the vast amounts of PDF data to Excel and handle the data generated by the accounting department, as well.

Improving Document Management With Able2Extract

With this in mind, the company added Able2Extract to their document management system to fill that need.  A case study on Momentum shows that the company’s workflow did nothing but improve from the addition. You can read the full Momentum case study here. Successful highlights from the case study include:

  • Saved $30,000 annually
  • Saved 100% of their time on information assembly
  • No training required to start converting PDF to Excel
  • Experienced accurate data conversions

By making an adjustment in one troublesome area in their document management system, Momentum was able to start processing and handling their client data more effectively.  

Implementing a document management system can do wonders for the productivity of accounting firms. But that system must be flexible enough to change with your daily activity and routine.  

If your firm has a system already set up, make sure it has a tool for every step in the process. Tailor the workflow and make adjustments as needed. If the addition of one PDF converter can improve Momentum’s metrics, think of what it can do for your firm.