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Sometimes you don't want or don't have time to create a new spreadsheet from scratch. Thankfully there are many starter spreadsheet templates that help you collect and analyze data for different situations without having to build out an entire new spreadsheet.
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Sometimes, you don't want, or
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don't have time to create a new spreadsheet from scratch.
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Thankfully, there are many starter spreadsheet templates that help
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you collect and analyze data for
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different situations, without having to build out an entire new spreadsheet.
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There are lots of spreadsheet templates available online that you can find using
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search engines.
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Also, Google Sheets has templates available.
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To use the Sheets templates, you open up a new sheet, as you see on your screen here,
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then you go to the File menu, select New,
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and then go down to the bottom and click From template.
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Then you get taken to a section that has general templates available to all users.
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Note that you can also create templates for your organization.
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We don't have any.
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But here we are, and
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there's several different example templates that we can choose from.
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So let's look at the expense report template.
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I click on it and here we have the template.
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So I can enter my company name,
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Smells Like Bacon Inc.
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Our street is 123 Street.
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It's a weird address, I know.
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And then let's say we're based in Lake Tahoe,
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CA, and we're from the Bay Area so we have a 415 number.
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You get the deal, you can customize it to your needs.
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So that's one example template that Google provides.
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Let's look at another.
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From template, again I'm following the same process and
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let's look at what their travel planner template looks like.
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See the trip title at the top, let's say we're going to Paris.
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Paris Summer 2020.
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And we can insert some rows, so I'm gonna click
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the row here, insert above, insert above.
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Let's say we're going with Andrew, Nick.
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Wow, look at that.
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What happened there?
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So the formatting was messed up, and
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what I did to get around that is I just copied the rows and pasted them in.
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Let's say we're going with Andrew, Alena, Craig, and Ben.
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And the dates are July
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7th through August 7th.
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We're taking a long trip.
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And Paris, France, so I'm gonna copy these.
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Remember, I can use my keyboard shortcuts, copy and
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then Shift+Cmd+Down, and then paste.
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But the main point is that there's a lot of templates available
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through Google Sheets specifically, or you can search on a search
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engine to find some templates that are available from other sources as well.
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Similar to coding frameworks, templates can save you a lot of time.
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Don't be shy to look for example templates.
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More importantly, remember that the company you work for
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might have preferred formatting for certain types of spreadsheets.
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Make sure to check and see if there are templates your colleagues and
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boss would prefer that you use.
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Indeed, presenting your data in a format that's familiar to your coworkers will
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reduce friction when sharing information with them.
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Sometimes a template simply won't do though, and
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it makes more sense to start from scratch.
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The more advanced you get with spreadsheets and the better you get at
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building them, sometimes it's just easier to start from scratch.
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For example, in my first years as an analyst,
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I would often rely on templates when building earnings and transaction models.
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However by my second year, I preferred to build my own,
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as it helped me understand the data I was analyzing better.
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