- How to download and organize the course files into a clean folder structure
- Which Excel version you need and why (XLOOKUP and dynamic arrays)
- How to turn on iterative calculation now, so later lessons don't trip you up
Download and organize your files
Every section comes with a resource pack: practice workbooks (with a "before" and a completed "after" version), reference cards, and quiz answer keys. Download the pack, unzip it, and keep everything in one place. A tidy folder now saves a lot of "where did I put that file?" later.
A simple structure works best. Create one course folder, then a sub-folder per section, plus a single Resources folder for the cheat-sheets you'll reuse. Here's a layout that scales well:
| Folder | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Financial-Modeling/ | The top-level course folder |
| 01-Welcome/ | This section's files |
| 02-Excel/ | Practice workbooks for Section 2 |
| Resources/ | Cheat-sheets, glossary, style guide |
| My-Model/ | The model you build as you go |
Add a version number or date to important files, like Model_v3_2026-06-18.xlsx. When something breaks, you can always step back to a working version.
The right Excel version
This course assumes Microsoft Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365. Why so specific? Two modern features we rely on — XLOOKUP (a cleaner way to look up data) and dynamic arrays (formulas that spill results across many cells) — only exist in those versions. Older Excel will still work for most of the course, but you'd have to substitute older functions in a few places.
You can check your version quickly. The Excel formula below returns your build info into a cell, which is handy when you're troubleshooting compatibility:
=INFO("release")
Prefer Google Sheets? You can follow along — Sheets also has XLOOKUP and dynamic arrays. We'll flag the few places where menus or behaviour differ. The core ideas are identical; only the buttons move around.
Switch on iterative calculation
Here's a setting worth enabling now, even though you won't need it until much later. When we build a debt schedule, the model will contain a deliberate loop: interest depends on debt, and debt depends on interest. Excel calls this a circular reference and normally refuses to calculate it. Iterative calculation tells Excel "it's fine — keep recalculating until the numbers settle."
Turn it on via File → Options → Formulas → Enable iterative calculation. Set maximum iterations to 100 and maximum change to 0.001. Do it once now, and the tricky revolver lesson in Section 10 will simply work.
Step-by-step: enabling iterative calculation
- Open File → Options (on Mac: Excel → Preferences).
- Go to the Formulas tab.
- Tick Enable iterative calculation.
- Set Maximum Iterations to 100 and Maximum Change to 0.001.
- Click OK. You're done — no need to change it again.
Leaving iterative calculation on for every workbook can hide accidental circular references — real errors you'd want to catch. Enable it deliberately, and if a model shows a circular-reference warning you didn't intend, fix the formula rather than ignoring it.
Excel
Iterative calc lives in File → Options → Formulas. XLOOKUP and dynamic arrays require Excel 2021 or 365.
Google Sheets
In Sheets it's File → Settings → Calculation → Iterative calculation. XLOOKUP and spill arrays are supported by default.
Key terms
Key takeaways
- Keep your course files in a clean, per-section folder structure with version-dated models.
- Use Excel 2021 or 365 (or Google Sheets) so XLOOKUP and dynamic arrays are available.
- Enable iterative calculation now so the later debt-schedule lessons work without surprises.