In today's working world, mastering Microsoft's spreadsheet application Excel has become as essential as knowing how to write up a CV. The trouble is, Excel still remains a complex tool and you'll need patience and work to become familiar with all the formulas and graphs you can use. Luckily, Codswallop has written up a great list of guides and tips to improve your Excel skills. It includes online tutorials and videos, books, forums, experts to contact, blogs, templates and tools.

I quite like the tutorial on common uses for formulas, which lets you learn how and when you can make use of Excel spreadsheets. I'd also recommend mastering pivot tables (a specificity of Excel) with either of the tutorials on the subject. Also check out the Excel Tips book, to get handy advice on what functions to use. Excel is probably the cornerstone application of accountants and finance workers alike, so if this is your department make sure to take a look at one of the specialized books like Principles of finance with Excel or Sales forecasting with Excel and download some useful business templates like balance sheets or expense reports to save some time. Of the Excel tools provided, I'd suggest Asap utilities, which gives more firepower to your Excel, PDF to Excel, to transfer data from one format to another and FlorenceSoft to quickly compare similar spreadsheets and quickly find differences. Finally why not a little bit of comic relief with some "funny" Excel videos (I know, it does sound a bit scary) or relax with Excit, an Excel-themed Flash game.