When it comes to business accounting, Microsoft Excel is the best tool out there. Not only does Excel knowledge impress employers, but it is incredibly useful in terms of performing the basics. If you’re ready to use Excel, then there a few details to learn beforehand.
Basics About Excel
Before you start, there are a few ground rules to keep in mind. First, Excel helps you track your business, but if you have a complicated financial situation. Complicated finances take a lot of extra work that you may need other types of software. Since this is not an automated solution, you do have to worry about data entry errors. Now, with that in mind, Excel is great for accountants with a tight budget.
Excel Bookkeeping Templates
The first thing that you need to figure out with Excel is how to set it up so that you can track all of your finances. In the past, you may have had to make your own Excel template. Nowadays, however, you can rely on templates that come straight from the interface. You can find ledgers, invoicing templates, reconciliation sheets, personal finance trackers and more.
Excel Works With Bookkeeping
Excel does do an incredible job when it comes to reports with accounting data. You can do day-to-day comparisons and find different anomalies in your expenses. You can also take out recurring costs to see where your daily cash goes. Since you can cut data in any way that you want, you can get a lot of use out of Excel. For instance, you can learn the rate of return on cash flows, you can discover the NPV of an investment and you can reference your chart of accounts.
How to Use Excel
When you want to use Excel for bookkeeping, here are the steps that you should take.
- Make sure that you’re invested in using Excel
- Learn the templates Microsoft offers
- Use tutorials online to learn the building process
- Learn to tweak the templates to suit your needs
- Explore the sheet and fill it with data to learn more
The more that you practice and play with Excel, the more likely you are to learn how to use it in more advanced ways.
When it comes to business accounting, you can do a lot of the basic functions and tracking on Microsoft Excel. While it might appear complicated at first, with a few basic tips, you can be on your way to becoming an Excel expert.
