Assignment 1

EXCEL FUNDAMENTALS - PART 2

Car Loan Practical Exercise #2 (continuation of LAB exercise 1)

When the national economy slows and new car inventories rise, auto
manufacturers frequently offer special financing deals to try to get people to buy
cars. These "deals" usually involve rebates and/or special financing rates.

Assume you work for a car dealer who has asked you to use Excel to develop a
computer model to assist potential buyers in analyzing the various alternatives
available for purchasing a new car. Presently the dealership is offering
"incentives" of a $1,000 rebate (or discount) on the price of a new car or special
financing rates. If a buyer takes the rebate they will have to pay a higher interest
rate on their loan. If a buyer does not take the rebate they can get special, "low
cost" financing rates. These rates are summarized in Figure 1 on the following
page.

Your job is to modify the model you created in Part I of this assignment to
accommodate these different financing options. Your main spreadsheet should
look close to the one shown in Figure 2 on the following page.

Notice that the example shown in Figure 2 assumes this person is taking the
rebate so the numbers in the "Finance Rate" row of the table are the higher
interest rates. You should set up the spreadsheet so that the proper finance rates
will appear on this row and be used in the various calculations depending on
whether or not the buyer takes the rebate. (Use the VLOOKUP() function in the
row labeled "Finance Rate" to obtain the correct interest rates from the "Finance
Rate Table".)

Since the only valid entries for the "Rebate" cell are $0 and $1,000 your
spreadsheet should display an error message next to this cell if it contains any
other value. Use an IF() function to do this.

Make sure your spreadsheet is set up so that it will calculate the correct answers
regardless of what purchase price, down payment and trade-in values are "input"
by the user. That is, make sure you use formulas that depend on these "input"
cells wherever possible. Your formulas should use appropriate relative and
absolute cell addressing. You should NOT "hard code" the purchase price, down
payment or trade-in amount into formulas. Similarly, if the finance rates are
changed in the "Finance Rate Table" the new values should automatically be
incorporated into your analysis. So again, do not "hard code" finance rates into
your formulas. Instead, build formulas that refer to the cells containing the
finance rate values wherever possible.
WHAT TO TURN IN

When you are confident your model works correctly, save your worksheet in a file
called Carloan_your_name.xls and be prepared to turn it in on a virus-free disk.

Figure 1
 Figure 2

Skills Checklist
Excel Fundamentals - Part II

By the end of this session you should know:

• How to use the checkbox control on the "Forms" toolbar
• How to hide the contents of a cell
• How to move and copy information on a spreadsheet
• How to name ranges
• Understand the difference between relative and absolute cell
addresses
• Understand the following functions:
=IF(logical_test,value_if_true,value_if_false)

=SUM(number1,number2,...) or =SUM(range1, range2, ...)

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,col_index_num,range_lookup)

=HLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,row_index_num,range_lookup)