1. General Topics Home
2. Introduction
   1. Getting Started
   2. Using The Help File
   3. Top Dozen Functions
   4. Golden Rules
   5. Excel 2007
3. Menu Options
   1. Go To
   2. Function Selector
   3. CalculateFull
   4. Calculate WorkSheet
   5. Trace Facility
   6. Quick Paste Example
   7. Tutorials
   8. Function Finder
   9. Examples
   10. Help
   11. Excel"s Function Wizard
   12. Access Internet
   13. Usage of Functions (Audit)
   14. Uninstall
4. Business Functions Date Arithmetic
   1. Time Periods
   2. Inclusive and Exclusive Dates
   3. Using Daycount
   4. Examples of DayCount
   5. Annual Date Sequences
   6. ProjMode and Inclusive Dates
   7. Date Rolling Convention
5. Techniques
   1. Rate Projections Functions Walkthrough
   2. Accruals and Cash
   3. Repeating Formulae
   4. Range Names and References
   5. Optional Parameters
   6. Using PmtsPerYear
   7. Modelling Seasonality
   8. Calculating Interest
   9. Using Business Functions in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)
   10. Array Functions
   11. Volatility
   12. Annual Equivalent Rates
   13. Array Function
   14. Auto Multi Functions
   15. Variable Plurality
   16. GoalSeek
6. Worked Examples
   1. Introduction To the Worked Examples
   2. Daycount
   3. General Projections
   4. Business Plans
   5. Cashbasis And Periods
   6. Using Timebases
   7. Using Dates
7. How to ...
   1. How To Generate a time scale for a structured financing
   2. How To Project Rents off a Rental Forecast
   3. How To Run a model on different time bases
   4. How To Isolate The Cause of a Errors in Cells using Trace
8. Utilities - Information
   1. Introduction to the Utilities
   2. Audit
   3. Synchronized Range Insert/Delete
   4. Database Edit
   5. Insert Macro Button
   6. Link Analyser
   7. Range Describer
   8. PrintScript (beta)
   9. Create Local Range Name
9. Utilities - Formatting
   1. Number Formats
   2. Apply BF"s Color Palette
   3. Bullets
   4. Color Cells
   5. Conditional Formats
10. Utilities - Validating
    1. Validation DropDowms
    2. Validation Standards
11. Utilities - Operations
    1. Select Excel Function
    2. Array Function Tools
    3. Sort Sheets
    4. Range Value
    5. Named Range Manager
    6. Enforce WorkBook Settings
    7. Monte-Carlo
    8. TimeChart
12. Customising Business Functions
    1. The ".ini" file
13. Resources On The Web
    1. Forum
    2. Online Help
    3. Templates
14. Appendix 1
    1. Conversion of Input Strings to Values
    2. List of Holidays
    3. Acknowledgements and Trademarks
    4. Published Editions Changes in Behaviour
    5. Range Handling And Constraints
    6. Dates in Excel and Business Functions
    7. Old Composite DayCount Format
    8. DayCount in Excels"s Functions
15. Appendix 2 Key Formulae
    1. NPV of Annual To Periodic CashFlows - CorrectionM
    2. Interest - Simple, Annual, Continous and Discount Factors
16. Appendix 3 New and Retired Functions
    1. New Functions
    2. Obsolete Functions
    3. Discontinued Functions
    4. Deprecated Functions

Repeating Formulae

• Maintainability. It is much easier to maintain and debug, owing to the fact that that if you"ve inspected one cell in a row or column to see what it is doing, you"ve effectively inspected them all. One-off "kludges" in particular cells can lead to horrible bugs that take a long time to find. It is harder to write repeating formulas (especially without Business Functions) but it is widely accepted to be better.
  
• Timebase Change. If the formula is the same, you can generalise it to cope with the time base changing. For example, you may want to change the start date of a model, or run it quarterly instead of annually. This is where Business Functions really makes the job easier, because it expressly permits the length of the time period to be specified when doing projections. So when using a projections function, only the Time and Base should change within a row or column - the other variables in the function should be constant, either input as numbers, as absolute (dollared) references, or best still as Range Names. This is one of the real advantages of BF.