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Sometimes you don't want or don't have time to create a new spreadsheet from scratch. Thankfully there are many starter spreadsheet templates that help you collect and analyze data for different situations without having to build out an entirely new spreadsheet.
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Sometimes, you don't want, or
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don't have time to create a new
spreadsheet from scratch.
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Thankfully, there are many starter
spreadsheet templates that help
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you collect and analyze data for
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different situations, without having
to build out an entire new spreadsheet.
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There are lots of spreadsheet templates
available online that you can find using
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search engines.
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Also, Google Sheets has
templates available.
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To use the Sheets templates, you open up a
new sheet, as you see on your screen here,
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then you go to the File menu, select New,
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and then go down to the bottom and
click From template.
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Then you get taken to a section that has
general templates available to all users.
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Note that you can also create
templates for your organization.
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We don't have any.
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But here we are, and
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there's several different example
templates that we can choose from.
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So let's look at the expense
report template.
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I click on it and
here we have the template.
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So I can enter my company name,
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Smells Like Bacon Inc.
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Our street is 123 Street.
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It's a weird address, I know.
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And then let's say we're
based in Lake Tahoe,
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CA, and we're from the Bay Area so
we have a 415 number.
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You get the deal,
you can customize it to your needs.
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So that's one example template
that Google provides.
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Let's look at another.
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From template,
again I'm following the same process and
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let's look at what their travel
planner template looks like.
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See the trip title at the top,
let's say we're going to Paris.
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Paris Summer 2020.
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And we can insert some rows,
so I'm gonna click
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the row here, insert above, insert above.
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Let's say we're going with Andrew, Nick.
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Wow, look at that.
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What happened there?
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So the formatting was messed up, and
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what I did to get around that is I just
copied the rows and pasted them in.
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Let's say we're going with Andrew,
Alena, Craig, and Ben.
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And the dates are July
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7th through August 7th.
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We're taking a long trip.
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And Paris, France, so
I'm gonna copy these.
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Remember, I can use my keyboard shortcuts,
copy and
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then Shift+Cmd+Down, and then paste.
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But the main point is that there's
a lot of templates available
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through Google Sheets specifically,
or you can search on a search
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engine to find some templates that
are available from other sources as well.
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Similar to coding frameworks,
templates can save you a lot of time.
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Don't be shy to look for
example templates.
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More importantly,
remember that the company you work for
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might have preferred formatting for
certain types of spreadsheets.
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Make sure to check and see if there
are templates your colleagues and
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boss would prefer that you use.
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Indeed, presenting your data in a format
that's familiar to your coworkers will
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reduce friction when sharing
information with them.
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Sometimes a template simply
won't do though, and
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it makes more sense to start from scratch.
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The more advanced you get with
spreadsheets and the better you get at
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building them, sometimes it's just
easier to start from scratch.
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For example,
in my first years as an analyst,
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I would often rely on templates when
building earnings and transaction models.
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However by my second year,
I preferred to build my own,
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as it helped me understand
the data I was analyzing better.
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