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Learn professional best practices for working with spreadsheets.
Example Files
- you can continue to use the spreadsheet from the last video, or
- open a copy of this spreadsheet to catch up to this video
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[MUSIC]
0:00
As you start with your spreadsheet,
it's important to keep formatting and
0:04
organization in mind.
0:08
How much time you spend organizing and
0:10
formatting the spreadsheet depends
on the answers to a few questions.
0:12
The first question you should ask
yourself is, what's the meaning of life?
0:16
I am just kidding,
that a fun question to ponder but for
0:21
what we are doing now is actually,
how is this spreadsheet going to be used?
0:23
Is it a one off piece of work?
0:28
Or this is something that I expect
to use in an ongoing manner?
0:30
For example,
0:33
doing calculations on how much I have to
save to buy a car might be a one off use.
0:35
Tracking a monthly budget or
0:40
rolling forecast are examples
of repeated use of spreadsheets.
0:41
For spreadsheets you will use
frequently and for a long time,
0:46
you should put more thought into
how you organize and format it.
0:49
It's an important spreadsheet.
0:54
So put the time in up front.
0:55
Another important question to ask is,
0:57
am I going to be sharing this
spreadsheet with others?
0:59
Formatting becomes much more important
when multiple people will be working on
1:03
this spreadsheet.
1:07
You'll want the spreadsheet to be clear,
easily read and
1:08
understandable to everyone
you share it with.
1:11
We'll talk about some best practices for
1:14
formatting spreadsheets in
this part of the course.
1:16
Let’s start with adding
color to spreadsheets.
1:19
Lots of newcomers to spreadsheets
will start to use color
1:22
as an organizational formatting tool.
1:25
I can change the background of
cells by clicking on a cell and
1:27
then choosing the color that
I want to change it to.
1:32
So here I've selected a bunch of cells.
1:37
I'm going to make them all a light gray.
1:39
You can also change
the color of text in cells.
1:41
I wanna make this text green.
1:48
That's scary.
1:52
So I'm gonna undo all
the color changes I just made.
1:55
If you're collaborating,
1:58
make sure you are aware if any of
your collaborators are color-blind.
1:59
Be sensitive to their needs and
make adjustments accordingly.
2:02
Share your spreadsheet early to
get feedback from others you work
2:06
with to make sure the colors make your
spreadsheet easier to read and understand.
2:08
In my opinion, the two most powerful uses
of colors in a spreadsheet are, one,
2:13
to signal hard coded or soft coded cells,
and two, to highlight important data.
2:17
Here I've opened a spreadsheet
example that has good formatting.
2:24
In the first case of using colors
powerfully in spreadsheets,
2:29
that is to signal hard coded or soft coded
cells, best practice is to use blue for
2:32
numbers that are manually inputted or
hard coded and
2:37
black for cells that are referencing other
cells with no manual input in the formula.
2:40
Here we have colored text that
is manually inputted blue
2:45
and cells that are referencing
others through formulas as black.
2:50
Most financial analysts will be familiar
with this formatting practice and
2:55
sometimes expand on it.
2:59
So for example,
if they're using an assumption and
3:00
they're not sure about it,
they might color it red, instead of blue.
3:03
For highlighting important data,
don't go crazy.
3:07
Simply highlight a row or a column or
3:10
a collection of cells showing the most
important items on a spreadsheet.
3:12
So here we have highlighted this
as the key takeaway, it's yellow,
3:16
there's not a bunch of color,
it's just this one row.
3:21
Keep in mind when working with colors
that too many colors can quickly become
3:26
distracting and difficult to maintain.
3:30
Let's look at example.
3:32
In this spreadsheet,
there is lot's of different colors and
3:35
it's kinda hard to tell what they mean.
What's the important thing that
3:40
I'm supposed to looking at here?
Sometimes people will use colors for
3:45
rows, they'll use colors for columns.
3:49
You're gonna have to use
your judgment a bit here.
3:53
But just be cautious about getting
too crazy with using too many colors.
3:55
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