Excel 2007 and Financial Analysis

[Travis]

1) Can anyone recommend a good training book for excel 2007?

2) I am a financial analysis for a major restaurant chain. My job is to figure out if promotions or cost cutting measures is making us money, or saving us money. My boss has told me that there are no books for what I do. Does anyone know of any kind of books that can help?

Thanks!

[silicon toad2000]

There are a few online tutorials which may help with excel. It depends what your current knowledge is.
If this is a career path you have chosen and wish to stick with I would suggest looking into one of the accounting associations. Maybe start with a course at a local community college on finanical modeling with excel.

As far as books go, there are plenty around. Look for the topic costs analysis and business analysis. Depending on where your at and what you want to do you might find some cost accounting books and some budgeting books of use also.

The key with analysis is collecting data and comparing it with historical data. You'll need to start putting together KPI's (key performance indicators). I'm thinking for hospitality things like daily sales, sales per staff, wastage, consumables expenses...
Above all, graph it and look for patterns or the effect promotions seem to have on the KPI's. Bosses like to see all the information in a single glance. Graphs and colours always seem to go a long way with bosses.