We’re getting back to basics with Excel- the tool we all love and hate. 1) Under the Formula tab, select Define Name. 2) Change the Name and Reference of your constant. 3) Select OK, and now you should be able to use your constant name in formulas. 4) If you…

It is essential in the budgeting process to capture accurate data, so that you can plan accordingly for the rest of the year. The better you are at capturing data, the better your end results will be. This post provides some insight to help you create data input templates that help…

When creating your Excel budgeting templates, it is important to keep them as simple as you can in order to ensure people are not overwhelmed with templates that are unnecessarily complicated. Try to build templates that keep the following in mind:   1. Reduce the amount of data presented to…

How do you quickly insert a Symbol? We’re getting back to basics with Excel- the tool we all love and hate. Have you ever had to add a symbol into a cell in Excel? Sometimes it can be difficult to copy and paste, but luckily, you can quickly add in your…

A successful budget must bring together three major pillars – people, data and process. Gaps in any of these areas will decrease the accuracy of the final budget numbers. The People This element is pretty self-explanatory – you cannot create a budget without the people! You should always consider the…

How do you delete all non-formula data?   We’re getting back to basics with Excel – the tool we all love and hate. Below is a sample Balance Sheet that contains both numeric and formula cells. The following steps outline how you can eliminate all the data while still keeping…

Let’s state the obvious, budgeting isn’t sexy, nor is it fun. It’s an ongoing process, and companies need to do it on an annual basis. If you’ve ever stopped to ask yourself, why am I doing this budget report, then this article is for you… 1. “Because we have to” So…

We’re getting back to basics with Excel- the tool we all love and hate. How do you combine data from multiple cells into one cell? Select the desired cell you want the combined data to appear in Enter in =[First Cell]&&[Second Cell] If necessary, add any additional characters to separate…

In our first post in the Detail Budgeting series, we noted that a common issue among budgeters was an inability, in traditional budgeting systems, to enter enough explanatory detail.  True Sky Budgeting and Planning provides a number of solutions to this issue, including how Line Item Detail can be used…

How do you round to the nearest whole number? Sometimes as accountants, we become so dependent on our pre-built budgeting templates, that we forget how to use Excel from scratch. So we’re getting back to basics with Excel- the tool we all love and hate. Today, we’re looking at rounding…