Forum Discussion
Microsoft's Monthly College Budget Template Excel 2013 - how it works ?
arjunrr I understand Excel, and still fully agree with you that this template is very (I'd say "overly") complicated. It suffers from the same syndrome that too many of the Excel templates suffer from (IMHO) and that is that it's too cute. Whoever developed it was aiming for sizzle rather than substance. It may indeed have substance, but it's obscured by unnecessary features such as the "slider" (a drop down selector for the month would be equally effective, but less jazzy, so jazzy it is, functional it's not).
And unless I missed it, I didn't see how you would enter income and expenses in an itemized way; looked more like you had to track the raw data somewhere else.
Frankly, if I were you, I'd go find another template. Or create my own.
mathetes Minds alike! Didn't see your post until half an hour after it was time stamped.
Minds alike indeed.
I've complained to Microsoft about the fact that a very high percentage of the templates I've looked at (which is admittedly a small number, so it would be unfair to paint with too broad a brush)...a very high percentage of the ones I've looked at suffer from this same tendency, to offer a lot of graphics and other sizzle features, but actually get in the way of functionality, by hiding things, limiting things that would be useful.
At the same time, I recognize the difficulty involved in creating a spreadsheet for others to use. You do that professionally. I've only done it (back before I retired) as a colleague, helping somebody else in the office improve a design, but always with the understanding that I was there to help if needed. Nevertheless, what I created (what was needed) was almost always a basic database or Table to track transactions, and then such things as Pivot Tables to produce meaningful summaries.
The income and expense tracker that I've created for myself is one that I'd consider publishing as a template, except that Money in Excel is already there and it links nicely with bank and credit cards. It doesn't, however, link with my bank, at least not with the dual factor authentication that protects my accounts. SO...I'm happily using my own design, with a lot more flexibility, lot more depth in budget categories.....