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Add the Data Analysis ToolPak to Excel

By Wendy Tietz, CPA, Ph.D.; Jennifer Cainas, CPA, DBA; and Tracie Miller-Nobles, CPA
March 9, 2021

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2021. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

Related

November 10, 2020

Use the Quick Access Toolbar to increase your efficiency in Excel

TOPICS

  • Technology
    • Microsoft Excel
  • Accounting Education

Are you interested in running more advanced data analysis in Excel? If so, you can add the Analysis ToolPak to your current version of Excel. It provides several analysis functions including Anova, Correlation, Descriptive Statistics, Histogram, Regression, and T-tests.

How to add the Analysis ToolPak

After opening Excel, click File.

excel-file


At the bottom of the File menu, click Options.

options


Click Add-Ins and then Go… .

add-ins


This opens an additional pop-up window that allows you to select the Analysis ToolPak. After selecting the add-in, click OK.

analysis-toolpak

Locating the Analysis ToolPak

After you have added the Analysis ToolPak to your Excel software, you will find it on the Data tab. Click on Data and then Data Analysis.

data-analysis


You can now complete a number of advanced data analysis tasks using Excel. Keep an eye out for our next article, which will demonstrate how to use the descriptive statistics tool in the Analysis ToolPak.

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— Wendy Tietz, CPA, CGMA, Ph.D., is a professor of accounting at Kent State University in Kent. Ohio; Jennifer Cainas, CPA, DBA, is an instructor of accountancy at the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Tracie Miller-Nobles, CPA, is an associate professor of accounting at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. See their site AccountingIsAnalytics.com for resources they have developed for teaching data analytics in introductory accounting. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact JofA senior editor Courtney Vien at Courtney.Vien@aicpa-cima.com.

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