Top 5 Excel CPE Courses to Boost Your Finance Skills

Written by CFI Team

Reviewed by Jeff Schmidt

Read Time 4 minutes

Excel CPE Courses: Build Skills That Make an Immediate Impact

Looking to sharpen your Excel skills while earning CPE credits? Excel remains the gold standard for financial professionals. Excel CPE courses give you the practical tools to analyze data, create reports, and drive better decisions.

This article provides a curated list of the top Excel CPE courses from CFI that combine practical, hands-on training with continuing professional education requirements.

Whether you’re mastering budgeting, improving data analysis, or building dynamic dashboards, these courses will help you work smarter, grow your expertise, and advance your career.

1. Budgeting and Forecasting (4.5 CPE Credits)

Struggling to build accurate budgets and forecasts that your team can rely on? You’re not alone. Budgeting errors, outdated models, and unrealistic projections can create headaches for finance professionals and leadership alike.

An Excel CPE course on Budgeting and Forecasting can help. In this course, you’ll learn to streamline your budgeting process, build accurate forecasts, and analyze variances — all while leveraging Excel tools you can apply immediately.

How It Works

Through real-world scenarios and practical exercises, you’ll learn to:

Build adaptable budgeting models from the ground up.
Apply both quantitative and qualitative forecasting techniques to predict outcomes.
Use Excel features like cost-driver analysis and zero-based budgeting for added accuracy.
Present results clearly with professional visuals that stakeholders can understand.

With your new skills, you can create flexible budgets that adapt to revenue changes in real time and build forecasts that inform leadership decision-making.

These are the kinds of results you can achieve with the right training. This Excel CPE course helps you move beyond outdated models to create budgets and forecasts that drive real business results. At the same time, you’ll earn CPE credits and strengthen your Excel skills.

2. Scenario & Sensitivity Analysis in Excel (1.5 CPE Credits)

What happens when the market shifts, costs spike, or revenues drop? Finance professionals often struggle to predict the impact of these changes, leading to decisions based on guesswork rather than data.

An Excel CPE course on Scenario and Sensitivity Analysis gives you the tools to forecast scenarios and stress-testing assumptions. These insights help leadership teams manage businesses effectively through uncertainty.

How It Works

You’ll learn to:

Build integrated scenario systems that test multiple assumptions (best case, base case, and worst case).
Differentiate between scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis to target the right approach.
Use Excel tools like CHOOSE and Data Tables to streamline your analysis.
Visualize results with tornado charts for quick insights.

Imagine if your manager asks, “What happens if costs go up by 10% next quarter?” With your new skills, you build a dynamic Excel model and analyze the impact of rising material costs. The analysis results guide leadership in proactively adjusting pricing strategies to avoid margin erosion.

By taking this Excel CPE course and earning CPE credits, you’re now capable of managing uncertainty, anticipating challenges, and building models that provide clarity in high-stakes situations.

3. Fundamentals of Data Analysis in Excel (4.5 CPE Credits)

Drowning in data but struggling to find insights? Finance professionals deal with massive datasets daily, yet many spend hours cleaning data and manually building reports. Without the right tools, you risk missing critical trends and delaying key decisions.

An Excel CPE course focused on data analysis equips you to streamline data processes, analyze patterns, and uncover actionable insights using Excel’s most powerful tools.

How It Works

In this Fundamentals of Data Analysis in Excel course, you’ll gain hands-on experience with:

Power Query: Automate data cleaning and transformation.
Pivot Tables: Summarize and organize large datasets efficiently.
Power Pivot: Build advanced data models to analyze relationships.
Data Visualization: Create charts and graphs that communicate findings clearly.

Imagine using Power Query to consolidate revenue data from multiple departments into one automated report, saving hours of repetitive work. Instead of managing spreadsheets, you focus on analyzing trends and presenting insights that drive the business forward.

This Excel CPE course helps you master essential data analysis techniques — all while you earn CPE credits. Now you uncover insights, save time, and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

4. Dashboards and Data Visualization (3.5 CPE Credits)

Does your analysis tell a story, or do your reports get ignored? Finance professionals know the challenge: presenting data visually can make the difference between actionable insights and overwhelmed stakeholders.

This Excel CPE course on Dashboards and Data Visualization how to build interactive dashboards and professional visualizations that ensure your insights drive action.

How It Works

In this course, you’ll learn to:

Design interactive dashboards that summarize critical metrics clearly.
Select the best visuals — bar charts, line charts, and waterfall charts — to communicate trends effectively.
Use conditional formatting and Excel slicers for dynamic reporting.
Structure user-friendly layouts that engage and inform stakeholders.

With your new skills, you create a dashboard to track departmental spending and variances. Interactive visuals highlight trends, KPIs, and risks, enabling faster, easier decisions. Leadership uses it to spot cost-saving opportunities and improve budget alignment across the company.

Not only have you earned CPE credits, you now present complex financial data clearly and visually, making your analysis stand out and your recommendations actionable.

5. Modeling Taxes for Different Business Structures (1.5 CPE Credits)

Struggling to compare tax implications across multiple business structures? Excel simplifies this complexity — if you know how to use it.

This Excel CPE course on Modeling Taxes for Different Business Structures walks you through automating tax calculations, comparing scenarios, and making tax-efficient decisions.

How It Works

You’ll gain hands-on experience in:

Modeling taxes for various business structures, including partnerships and corporations.
Using Excel tools like MATCH, XLOOKUP, and Goal Seek to automate workflows.
Comparing tax liabilities across different scenarios.
Streamlining repetitive tasks to reduce errors and save time.

Imagine using Excel to model the tax impacts of an upcoming investment. Your analysis helps leadership choose a structure that reduces liabilities and maximizes after-tax returns. With Excel-based tax models, you’ll deliver accurate answers quickly, supporting better planning and decision-making.

This Excel CPE course not only earns you CPE credits but also gives you the tools to deliver actionable tax strategies that drive better decisions.

Excel CPE Courses to Advance Your Skills

The right Excel CPE courses go beyond meeting certification requirements — they equip you with practical skills that deliver measurable results in your role. From budgeting and forecasting to advanced modeling and dashboard creation, these NASBA-accredited courses give you the tools to stand out, work smarter, and grow your career.

Ready to earn your CPE credits and take your Excel skills to the next level? Explore CFI’s Excel CPE courses today and start building expertise that drives real impact.

Earn Your Credits!