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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.
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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