Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Understanding Auditing.

Understanding Auditing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 26, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Auditing is the process of analyzing the contents and formulas in a worksheet to make sure they are correct. Excel provides several tools that make auditing as painless as possible. Even so, auditing can be difficult and tedious work if your worksheet is large, complex, or poorly put together.

Excel uses some specific terminology that refers to the concepts involved in auditing, namely precedents and dependents. Precedents are those cells on which a formula is based. Thus, if cell A5 contains the formula =A3 + A4, then both A3 and A4 are precedents for cell A5. Dependents are the reverse of precedents. Thus, in this example, cell A5 is a dependent of cells A3 and A4.

You can further break down the distinction by having direct and indirect relationships. In the previous example, cell A5 is actually a direct dependent of (it directly depends on) cells A3 and A4. Likewise, A3 and A4 are direct precedents for cell A5. Suppose, however, that cell A6 contained the formula =A5 * 1.05. As you might imagine, cell A6 is a direct dependent of cell A5, but it is also an indirect dependent of cells A3 and A4. Similarly, A5 is a direct precedent of A6, and A3 and A4 are indirect precedents. It is possible to have many different levels of indirect precedents in a worksheet.

The tools that Excel provides to perform auditing tasks are available on the Formulas tab of the ribbon. (The tools are in the Formula Auditing group.)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8565) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Understanding Auditing.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Filtering Web Discussions

If you use the Web discussion capabilities available in some versions of Excel, you may want to filter the discussion ...

Discover More

Replacing an X with a Check Mark

In order to provide a finishing touch to your document, you may want to replace mundane X marks with fancier check marks. ...

Discover More

Notification when Recalculation is Done

If you manually recalculate your workbooks, you are probably doing so because of the time it takes to do the ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Turning Off Track Changes without Unsharing

The Track Changes tool in Excel can be helpful, but it can also be aggravating because it doesn't allow you to use it on ...

Discover More

Making Revisions

You've turned on Highlight Changes, but how do you know what has been changed? This tip explains how Excel displays those ...

Discover More

Using Custom Add-Ins

Once you've created your custom add-in, you need to know how you or other people can use it. Here are the simple steps to ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 9 - 4?

2025-04-26 12:39:02

J. Woolley

For more on this subject, see https://excelribbon.tips.net/T008271_Accessing_Dependent_and_Precedent_Information.html


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.