A lot of times, the most difficult part of creating an excel model is deciding on the structure and design of the model. For example, a newbie that needs to create a personal budget template may not know where to start and how to structure it. Luckily, there are many of such free templates every excel user can access to bypass the hassles of conceptualizing the structure and design of a template from scratch. In the paragraphs to follow, we would briefly take you through how to access existing templates in excel. Let’s begin.
Accessing Existing Templates in Excel
Creating a workbook based on an existing template is super easy, all you need to do is to follow the steps below:
Step 1: Navigate to file then click on new.
Step 2: Use the search box to search for your desired template. In our case we would be searching for a personal budget template.
Step 3: Click on create to download the template and start working on it.
Creating Your Personal Template
Excel also gives you the option of saving your workbook as a template for future use. This could be very useful if you plan on preparing multiple versions of the same workbook. For example, we have just prepared a simple investment appraisal model that would calculate the Payback period and Net Present Value for project evaluation.
As a financial analyst, we know we would most likely need to perform this evaluation for multiple projects at different times. Instead of having to repeatedly search for previous versions or start the model afresh, we can save it as a personal template.
In our file we want to make the input cells blank so that we know what cells to fill for the model to function. So you would see two images below, one is with all the input parameters completed and the second is with input parameters blank.
To save our workbook as a template, we just need to follow our guide below:
Step 1: After you are done creating your workbook, navigate to the file tab and click Save as.
Step 2: Click Browse
Step 3: Type in the name you would like to give your template
Step 4: Click the drop down by the right of the “Save as type” and select Excel Template
Step 5: Excel brings up the default template folder for saving your templates into. Just click save and you are done.
Working With Your Newly Saved Personal Template
To create a workbook with your newly saved template, just follow the steps below:
Step 1: Click on the file tab
Step 2: Click on new and select Personal
Step 3: Select from any of your personal templates you have saved. In our case, this is the PBP_NPV Template. Select and you are good to go.
