Work Smarter Not Harder
Work Smarter not Harder
Learning how to use pre-built templates and styles will allow you to work smarter in Excel and free up time to focus on value-add activities.
Note: This post contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link.
How to work smarter in Excel
One of the best ways we can reduce the amount of time we spend in Excel is through the use of automation, and use of pre-built files and templates. Many ways exist for improving productivity in Excel a few of the most common ways include:
Automating data cleanup and loading of data through power query, for more on learning Power Query click on the below link
Power Query — The Best Excel Reviews on the Web
Automating tasks by using VBA, office scripts, and Power Automate, for more on Power Automate check out the below link
Using Excel Add-ins that help automate and simplify repetitive tasks
Using styles and pre-built templates which is the focus of today’s blog
Styles
Excel Styles is a way to make formatting your spreadsheet easier, quicker, and more consistent. Styles are a predefined format that you can apply to your document. Sytles can be applied to worksheets, charts, pivot tables, slicers, graphs, shapes, etc.
The advantage of using styles include:
They are quick and easy you can even select from pre-built styles in Excel
They help keep your worksheet formatting and presentation consistent and clean looking
Save time - If you are manually changing your formatting every time you work in Excel you are wasting valuable time
Now that we understand a little bit about what styles are let’s jump into some resources for learning more about styles.
Resources for Learning about Excel Styles
Excel Styles • My Online Training Hub
The first blog on the list is by Mynda Treacy an Excel MVP. Her post covers the following:
What styles are
How to use a predefined style
How to create your own style
Common gotchas when working with styles
Cell Styles in Excel - Easy Tutorial
The second blot gives a super quick and simple overview of cell styles. If you want a quick guide that covers the basics and nothing in-depth then read this blog post from Excel Easy.
How to use Excel styles efficiently - TechRepublic
The third blog is from TechRepublic and is my favorite of the three mentioned. A few things I like about this blog include:
Provides a downloadable template that highlights the concepts discussed in the blog
Discusses styles in general and how they are used in different Microsoft Office Products
Provides a detailed explanation of what Microsoft styles are and walks through how to use them and shows you the impact of styles using the template that you can download to follow along.
Next, are a couple of videos that are great resources for learning about Excel styles.
The first video on the list is from Mike “Excelisfun” Girvin and it is the longest of the videos included today and covers more than just styles but covers formatting in general to include conditional formatting. Recommend these resources if you want to better understand formatting, styles, and conditional formatting in Excel.
The second video titled How to Use Styles in Excel comes to us from Tuts+ Computer Skills. The video does a good job of talking about the different ways you can format a cell and then showing how to use and build your own styles. The instructor also makes available the files for downloading so you can follow along in Excel as styles are explained.
Next, let us talk about pre-built templates.
Using Templates in Excel
When it comes to using templates in Excel one can save a lot of time by starting with a pre-built workbook that already includes a lot of what we need vs starting from scratch. When it comes to using templates, we have different ways we can do this in Excel.
We can save an excel file as a template format in Excel and then select that template from our version of Excel every time we want to use it
We can create an Excel file that is formatted a certain way, contains pre-built macros, etc. and we can make it so the file we have created opens in the background every time we open Excel
We can just save a group of files that are pre-built templates and open them in Excel each time we are working on a certain project
The video below is going to cover how to access pre-built Excel templates and how to save your templates in Excel, so you can reuse them whenever you want.
The below video is from Trump Excel and is going to explain how to automatically open specific excel files every time you start Excel. A lot of Excel users use this method to open a file with prebuilt macros and template sheets they use often so they are available when Excel opens.
Finding Excel Templates
The last section we are going to talk about is using and finding templates. You can find Excel templates for just about any use. Excel has a list of prebuilt templates included in the product. To access these when you open Excel, you will click on file then New and you will see the below screen which can open and search for various templates.
Screenshot of the pre-built Excel Templates
Within the search area of the templates section, you can either search online by typing your search criteria in the search block or you can select from the suggested searches. In the below image you will see I selected Personal, and it brings up a long list of templates some of which include:
Personal Monthly Budget
Loan Calculator
Personal expenses calculator
Weekly Schedule Planner
Family Tree Generator
and much more
Screenshot of Personal Templates in Excel
Once you find the template you want to use you click on it and follow the directions to create your copy of the template. Next, we are going to focus more on templates that many of us in finance and the business world would use and places to find good resources for pre-built financial modeling, and dashboard-type templates that can often take many hours and days to develop on our own. The resources below generally include paid templates, and, in some cases, I will receive an affiliate commission if you buy a template from one of these sites.
FINMODELS LAB
The first website on the list is FINMODELSLAB and as you can guess from the name it focuses on making available financial models in Excel. The founder of the site is Henry Sheykin and he makes 100’s of pre-built templates available on his website. These are professional well-built templates and include things such as:
Medical Practice Financial Model
E-commerce Financial Model
FinTech Financial Model
SWOT Matrix Template
GANTT chart
Cap Table
CAPEX Forecast
Budget vs Actuals Dashboard
and much more
You can access the site using the below link and if you purchase something I will receive a commission.
Furthermore, if you use my coupon code: TheFPandAGuy you will receive 20% off at checkout.
ELOQUENS
The next website is called Eloquens and its model is Don’t reinvent the wheel. The website has a catalog of resources available for download by various authors who have chosen to use the website. You will find world-class templates from experts in financial modeling including modelers such as
Lance Rubin founder of Model Citizn
Henry sheykin founder of FinModelsLab
Tim Demoures managing director of ELoquens
In addition to thousands of Excel templates, it has best practice guides and resources available for various subjects. The cost to download a template varies depending on how involved the document is you are downloading. Next time you are searching for something Eloquens is a great place to start. You can access the Eloquens website below:
Wall Street Oasis
The third and final resource on the list is Wall Street Oasis. This website provides a lot of great resources to work on wall street. It includes training resources and courses you can take to improve your modeling skills. It also has a lot of free templates available including some free financial modeling templates that you can use. Templates include things such as the following:
Income Statement
Balance Sheet
Debt Schedule
Working Capital
Fixed Asset
3 Statement Financial Model
and Many more
You can check them out at Wall Street Oasis.
Conclusion
When it comes to working in Excel odds are whatever you are building someone else has already built. Often spending a little time searching will help you find a template that will make building your spreadsheet a little easier. Even if you cannot find a template to get you started using styles and having a pre-defined template that ensures your model is consistent and attractive is worth the effort.
Leave your thoughts below on how you use Excel styles and templates to improve the quality of your work and save time.