Easy Spreadsheet Solutions - starting out

So here you are biting your nails and wondering what to do next! Your boss has given you a new task - to set up a spreadsheet to monitor holidays in your department. Challenge - you have never started a spreadsheet from scratch before, at least not one others will need to look at and verify the information. This will not just be your boss, but other managers too.

Having opened excel and have a new spreadsheet on your screen the first thing to do is save the file with an appropriate title. e.g. Team Holidays. You will go to the appropriate directory and file/ save as/Team Holidays - draft. By saving the file as a draft you let anyone else know that this is work in progress and not yet for use. There may be a directory already in existence which is available for this purpose.

Your next task is to find out exactly what information is needed on the spreadsheet. e.g. is the holiday allocation to be shown in days or hours? Hours is often easier if you have part time staff or staff with different hours on different days. Also you need the names of the staff together with their start date. For employees who have been with the company for the whole of the year this is not necessary although can prove useful information. However, for those who joined the company during the year it is necessary to calculate the pro rata holidays. Similarly those leaving during the year will need to have their holidays recalculated. HR departments will often advise you of the entitlements, but this may depend on the size of your company.

It is now time to put all this information on the spreadsheet. You will need a header row so that you know what information is required in each column. It's a good idea to format this in bold type. You can also add borders to the headings. This makes them, stand out from the information cells. Have fun and play around with different colours, fonts and borders. One very important thing to note is to REMEMBER TO SAVE FREQUENTLY! I have lost information and files by not doing this and my computer has crashed - very frustrating.

So that you can have an idea of the difference formatting make go to my link showing Spreadsheet Examples and click on Sample Holidays. This will take you to a spreadsheet showing some of this. At the top of the spreadsheet is the basic information with no formatting and if you go down to row 8 you will see this formatted.

Don't be afraid to experiment depending on the time you have. It is time well spent because a well formatted spreadsheet is easier to read, prints out the data in a clearer, more readable way and will therefore save you and your manager time in the long run.

If you would like any further help please go to my website and complete a contact form found on the 'Contact' page with your query and I will get back to you.

Website: http://www.margaretgammons.co.uk/