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.
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.
You're right I will create my own template, and I'll do the same if I have the same problems with future templates.
I thought it was complicated for me since I'm only a 'beginner' compare to people (like you) who use excel on a daily basis in their professional lives. I thought you'd find it easy to understand how the template works. My bad haha. I did learn some Excel tricks though. Now I understand why I found it so hard to understand the series and the linked charts of the template. Using my own design will be much simpler, and more flexible as you said.
Thanks a lot for your help!