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Templates made easy
Professionals working in the fields of accounting, budgeting, statistics and business analysis often use Excel for preparing their reports that are generally formula-intensive. In most cases, simple formatting and common formulas are used, and whenever a complex task is at hand, a lot of time is wasted in learning new techniques, functions and formulas. However, by using online templates this task can be made easier.
Financial templates are not installed by default with Excel, but one can easily explore a number of useful templates available online which can be searched, previewed and downloaded right from within Excel.
Go to File > New (note that pressing CTRL+N brings up a new sheet automatically, so do not use this shortcut key here). Task Pane will appear on the right showing “New Workbook” options. Under “Template”, there will be a search box. This box can be extremely useful.
For instance, if a banker wants to take a quick look at a loan or annuity scenario, one way is to create a custom sheet manually, using formulas like PMT and other arithmetic functions on every row for each number of installments, and set up named cells at the top so that changing parameters changes the entire schedule. But all this demands a lot of time.
Let us try the Online Template option by searching “loan”. Results that appear through Microsoft site include sheets like Loan amortisation schedule, Loan calculator, Loan analysis worksheet, Mortgage refinance calculator besides lots of others in the same genre. Click on first sheet, Loan amortisation schedule, and a preview window will open up.
From there, you will see the category hierarchy of templates which in this case is Business and Legal > Business Finance > Business Financial Statements. Rating and number of votes for the template are also displayed showing the level of confidence and peer reviews outcome. To download the template, simply press Download or continue browsing using previous and next tabs.
After you have downloaded the thing, you will see the fields where you will have to enter information like amount, interest rate, period, number of payments and start date besides a few other data. A complete schedule is generated for the duration of the loan, showing monthly payments, their principal and interest components, and thus cumulative interest. By simply changing the parameters at the top, for example, altering interest rate or duration of loan, the chart gets updated accordingly.
Apart from loan, there are many detailed templates for calculating scenarios of leasing (buy vs lease, operating vs own, buy vs rent), insurance, asset depreciation, annuity, mortgage, securities, fixed assets, inventory control and much more. Also, in order to localise the templates, you can simply set the values as they prevail locally, ensuring quick adaptability.
Formatting represents another advantage of templates. The templates are professionally designed and ready to be printed without setting up print area. Some workbooks use multiple worksheets or pivot tables with techniques such as linking and naming cell ranges, validation rules and conditional formulas, which can easily be learned and put into use in files other than those for templates.
With consumer financing on the rise these days, customers can use such calculators to get to know and verify their loan or lease schedules and to learn practically how changing certain factors affect installments. Students of business institutes, professionals from non-financial backgrounds working or analysing financial industry during migration to new IT systems, internees, new employees, application developers and system testers can also benefit from these ready-made templates.
To explore the complete range of templates available, click at the category link in search results. Surfing around the extensive categorisation, it is easy to locate templates other than those relating to business ones. Human resource people, doctors, educationists and community workers can all look for related stuff to use templates as they are or modify them to suit their needs.
For instance, the attendance and activity records having a variety of detail and frequency levels, planning, scheduling, resume, cover letters for HR, exercise and diet program sheets for healthcare professionals are all available. This also makes the job of technical writers and others responsible for company documentation a lot easier.
Writer’s email: nizar@gmail. com
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