From the course: Excel for Finance: Building a Three-Statement Operating Model

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The value of a placeholder row

The value of a placeholder row - Microsoft Excel Tutorial

From the course: Excel for Finance: Building a Three-Statement Operating Model

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The value of a placeholder row

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- [Instructor] Okay, so now let's introduce a financial modeling best practice that might seem a little bit silly, but I can't tell you how many times this has been a lifesaver for me, and how many times I see this error in other financial models. Let's just look at this formula really quick. If I press F2, I can see that it is the sum of these two rows. Simple enough. But what happens if I insert a row? if I press Alt I R, insert this blank row here. Let's take a look at this formula again. it still only contains the first two rows of information and this blank row is not captured, right? If I punch in 1000 here, this formula does not update, and I've already set myself up for error. So the first thing I'm going to teach you here about just making your model a little bit better to be error resistant is to include this placeholder row. It seems a little bit silly, I get it. It is life changing. Because it's…

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