CPAacademy.org Check-In | Episode 2: Jeff Lenning

Matt Iscoe

Thanks for joining us on the next CPAacademy.org Check-In, I'm so glad to have Jeff Lenning as our guest. Good to see you man.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Thanks for having me man.

Matt Iscoe

Thank you. I'm glad that you are here many of those watching likely know Jeff already, but for the few that don't he is an award winning instructor, shown thousands upon thousands of CPAs and accounting professionals how to use Excel to streamline their work and become more efficient and probably Jeff a lot more popular with their bosses.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Absolutely. 

Matt Iscoe

With their more efficiency or as they get more efficient with Excel.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Absolutely. excellent.

Matt Iscoe

So you know, Jeff, you are consistently top presenter with us on CPAacademy.org. So I'm excited to have this discussion with you today. Hopefully don't put you too much on the spot. But I wanted to ask how how did you discover? Excel could be a powerful tool for your own career.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Yeah, it's sort of funny I guess. Strangely enough, I have been fascinated with spreadsheets since junior high school actually and I've ever spending just hours mesmerized by the fact that you could change the value here and it just flows through all the calculations.

So anyway my skills built up slowly, you know, over high school a little bit, you know, a little bit in college. But then it was really when I got out into the real working world and discovered that by automating all of these manual tasks I was able to get my work done faster than my you know friends and so it's like they'd be working late hours and it's five o'clock and I'm like alright, see everyone and they're like wait where you going, haven't you finished the budget?

I'm like the budget is done right, like Excel just did it all. So just get you know gaining the skills to streamline the work until it finally all came together when I was the accounting manager and there was a little process called the monthly close and it was taking like two weeks per month to do. But by continuously improving the workbooks, I was able to get that monthly closed about two days per month instead of two weeks per month.

So that's when I'm like, oh my goodness, I need to be telling other people about this and that's what really started my journey of educating other Excel users to really show them all the efficiencies that can be gained with the true understanding of how Excel works and how all the pieces fit together.

Matt Iscoe

That's amazing. So you're saying it started off pretty young and for you and which wasn't that long ago, but I know that Excel has been around for a long time. So how has it managed to stay relevant and useful for for all this time?

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Yeah, you know that's the interesting part about Excel, which I think a lot of people might miss is that Microsoft is continuing to invest heavily in the development of of Excel. So you'll see new features and functions coming out all the time.

Now in the old days when we used to buy Excel, we used to buy Excel and then it would be like three years till we would get any new functions or features and it's like every three years or so, we'd get a new version of Excel. Excel 7, 2010, 2013 2016.

But now with the, with the creation of 365 we're getting updates literally monthly. And so these are new features, new functions, new capabilities that didn't exist before. And the problem with a lot of users is they don't take the time to go and track down all the new features and see that there are new, more efficient ways to getting your work done.

A simple example might be something like Power Query. Power Query was a feature that was rolled out and unless you really took the time to identify that there's this new feature and really dig in and check it out, you're gonna be doing things the way that you did before Power Query, which is a lot of manual steps, a lot of copy paste, a lot of manual updates and things like that. And that's just one of hundreds of examples of new things that keep coming out with Excel all the time.

Matt Iscoe

Well appropriately I'd say that you have founded and run Excel University which is the perfect name for all of those that want those relevant skills and the updates and what's useful to them. So along those lines, what's the biggest misconception people have about the products and how to use it and what are the challenges they come in and you were able to help them out with?

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Yeah, I would say the biggest misconception is that Excel is kind of like Microsoft Word but with tables in other words it's not that deep and and really part of my goal and part of my challenge is to demonstrate and prove to people that it is a big place, there's lots to it and once you really understand it, you can automate all of these routine tedious like mundane manual tasks and so I think people just underestimate the capability of Excel

Matt Iscoe

You're a popular presenter here on CPAacademy and it's obviously because of the Excel knowledge and specialization that you bring, but I also think it's because you're so good at connecting with people. And I wanted to just show a short clip from a recent webinar of yours just to show what I mean.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Now before I write this formula, it is very important to understand that there is a difference between SUMif and SUMifs. Alright, SUMif singular handles one condition, SUMifs handles multiple conditions, one or more conditions.

So therefore if you're trying to work along be sure to use SUMifs the plural because the order of the arguments are all switched around. If you're trying to use SUMif the arguments are in the opposite order. So just stick with SUMifs plural with the S. Okay, so Jeff this isn't a look up function. Why are we even talking about this as a battle? Because like it's not a look up function. I know it's not officially a look up function. Okay, but let's just see what it can do. Let's just kind of check it out. 

Matt Iscoe

Okay, so there you go. I think that that proves it as I might be a little weird to see yourself on a webinar. But I would say aside from your knowledge, what was your process for becoming a great instructor.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Yeah, so that's actually an interesting question. So I would say this, it took me at least a decade to really understand all the little things, the features, the functions and how they fit together to really automate my manual tasks and then it took like another 10 years to figure out how to actually teach that knowledge. So it's it's more than just I learned how to use it.

I actually learned how to teach it as well. And I said that took about 10 years of a lot of on site CPE raining classes, I don't know if you remember, but back in the days CPE was earned like in a live setting eight hours in a hotel conference room or something. And so I did hundreds of these sessions and with the live sessions I could see in real time people's questions, the understanding the lightbulb moments. And so it was really rewarding, but but that's really what helped me figure out exactly how to teach it and in what order to teach things.

And then I translated that into my full suite of on demand courses and those do really well because of the fact that I teach, what's practical, what's relevant and what's useful and that I've had that education and that I've had that experience in teaching live.

So I know how to structure the videos and, and I can anticipate what type of questions come up and I can show how all the pieces fit together.

Matt Iscoe

Excellent and obviously certainly very popular based on the number of people who who come from CPAacademy to see your sessions and then and then join you in Excel University. So I would just ask, you know, what advice would you share with those in the accounting profession that are just starting out versus all those that have been doing this for a while and you know, trying to meet them where their skill set actually is in the moment.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Yeah, so I would say a couple of things. First is spend the time to learn Excel because especially if you're just starting out and you're just starting out in your career, this, this skill alone is gonna be able to set you apart from your colleagues, it's gonna give you better opportunities, better upward mobility, better opportunity for promotions, more interesting work, because instead of just grinding out these routine manual tasks, you're gonna be able to automate it, so it'll be like, and now I'm done, and so then other people are gonna say, hey, how did you do that, can you help me?

And so it's just gonna open up a whole new world for you, So I would say if you're starting out, definitely take take the time to learn Excel, The other thing I might add is this if you're looking for a quick way to get started check out my courses because people learn sort of through Google and Youtube these days, there's nothing wrong with that.

But the issue is time, it just takes too long. So how many youtube videos have you had to watch before you realize they don't help you at all? How many blog posts you have to read before they don't really solve that specific problem.

And so don't learn Excel like I did again, that's going to take 10 years or a decade of mistakes and trials and errors. And so that's what I've done with these courses I've lined them up so that it's the fastest way to learn Excel. So if you want to get up to speed quickly, I would love to be your guide 

Matt Iscoe

Jeff, just an enormous thank you for spending time with me today.

Jeff Lenning, CPA, CITP

Hey, thanks man, it's always great to talk with you man.

Matt Iscoe

Likewise and thank you for sharing, thank you for being such a valued educator in the accounting space. And I'll say to our listeners, if you haven't yet run to enroll in Excel course with Jeff, please do. I know that you will love it. And now I'll turn it back over to Christine, thanks.