#How to use microsoft excel for budgeting how to#

During this course, you will learn how to use Excel for the two business areas that are forward looking i.e. I’d love some feedback on what other people are using for their budgets.Learn how to use Excel for budgeting and forecasting. I could probably come up with more reasons, but that’s good for now. Customizable – You can do what you want with Excel- colors, sizes, structures, etc… it’s fully customizable.I wondered why I spent $50+ on something that I use MAYBE 10% of its functionality.

#How to use microsoft excel for budgeting software#

As I’ve used other software to attempt to simply budget my finances, I just found that it did so much more than I needed it to do. Not a big deal- a couple of clicks and you’ve got it. Now, I’m not excel expert in fact, I had my wife sit down and show me a couple of simple formulas you can program into your excel budget to create some easy totals.

Easy to Setup – Again, if you take a look at my last post, I went into some detail on how easy it is to setup.

Convince me! I’ve tried Quicken before, and it was just too much for what I needed.

Don’t spend money on financial software! Again, that’s just my opinion… some of you make think otherwise. Here’s my take- if you are setting up a budget to evaluate what you are spending your money on, why not eliminate some of the unnecessary costs. But learning how to effectively navigate Excel can result in more productive analyses and the ability to graphically represent data, aiding in organizational efforts to track expenditures and control budget execution. Honestly, some of these programs can cost $100 plus! Mvelopes is going to charge you monthly. A Federal budget analyst’s inability to properly use Microsoft Excel can lead to poor financial performance. I would be willing to guess that many of you do, so it won’t be any added expense to you.

Costs Nothing – Well… sort of! You need actually have excel on your computer.

But for those of you that do use them and aren’t satisfied, or for those of you that maybe are just looking to start a budget and don’t know where to begin, allow me to give you a couple of reasons why excel works best! That’s okay! We’re all a little different- no big deal. Those programs work for some they don’t work for me, and they may not work for you. Okay- now I understand that many of you use some different budget management software, including Mvelopes, Quicken, and Mint.

For now, I hope that this posts convinces you by me illustrating a few ways that my excel budget improves how my wife and I take care of our family’s finances. In later posts, I’ll make sure to go into more detail on the various ways of structuring your excel budget and even some of the programming involved. Identify Your Financial Goals It’s essential to remember that budgets are all about planning for your spending, so. I understand that there is a lot of other products out there that you can use to track your finances, but I have a hard time disagreeing the effectiveness and simplicity of using Microsoft Excel. You can create a new sheet with ease, and separate your records however you please, but we’ll give you run down of how we make our budget at our Savvy home: 1.

This is a follow-up post on the excel budget example I showed yesterday.