Auditing

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Auditing' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Accessing Dependant and Precedent Information
The auditing tools in Excel allow you to easily see what cells are precedents to or dependent upon the current cell. In large, complex worksheets, you may find it helpful to extract this information and place it in a new worksheet where you can work with it more easily.

Counting Precedents and Dependents
Do you need to know how many precedents or dependents there are on a worksheet? You could count them manually, or you could let a short macro derive the information for you.

Tracing Dependent Cells
When auditing a worksheet, you can use a tool that will show cells that are dependant on whatever is in the current cell. This allows you to quickly and visually see how the current cell affects other cells in the worksheet. This tip explains the Trace Dependents tool, which provides this information.

Tracing Precedent Cells
When auditing a worksheet, you can use a tool that will show cells on which the current cell depends.. This allows you to quickly and visually see which cells affect the current cell. This tip explains the Trace Precedents tool, which provides this information.

Understanding Auditing
Excel provides a set of auditing tools that allow you to analyze a worksheet to make sure that the results you are getting are what you expect. This tip examines how auditing works in Excel, explaining the basics.