Building a Budget Worksheet in Excel
- name the sheet
- understand references
- enter information
- activate a cell
- enter row headings
- enter column headings
- make a column wider
- enter values
- calculate a difference
- calculate a percent diff
- sum some values
- calculate net income
- copy formulas
- copy and paste
- use the fill handle
- change a value
- extra bits
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
The primary element of our project is the monthly budget worksheet. This worksheet lists all of the income and expense categories with columns for budgeted amounts, actual amounts, dollar difference, and percent difference. It also includes subtotals and totals.
As you can see, an Excel worksheet window closely resembles an accountant's paper worksheet. It includes columns and rows that intersect at cells. To build our budget worksheet, we'll enter information into cells.
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In this chapter, we'll create the budget worksheet as shown here. (We'll apply formatting to the worksheet so it looks more presentable later in this project.)
name the sheet
The sheet tabs at the bottom of the worksheet window enable you to identify the active sheet. Each new workbook file includes three worksheets named Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. You can change the name of a sheet to make it more descriptive.
It's easy to identify the active sheet. Its sheet tab is white and the sheet name appears in bold text. And, if you have sharp eyes, you may notice that the active sheet's tab seems to appear on top of the other tabs.
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Windows
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Mac OS
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Double-click the Sheet1 sheet tab. The name of the tab becomes selected.
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Type January. The text you type overwrites the selected sheet name.
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Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS). The new name is saved.
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