Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Spreadsheet help for an idiot.
  • jambourgie
    Free Member

    Could someone please point me to any resources that explain how to set up and use spreadsheets?

    I’ve managed to get to a grand old age without having to use them, but now I need to get organised. I just want to put in all my income and expenses over a given period.

    I have Open Office but don’t really know where to start. Or indeed, even if that’s the right tool for the job.

    Thanks in advance 🙂

    jamiep
    Free Member

    There is a ‘For Dummies’ book on Excel, which shouldn’t be more than a tenner.

    jambourgie
    Free Member

    Good idea, thanks.

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    jambalaya
    Free Member

    For Dummies books are good enough, best way though is to find a helpful soul who will sit down with you. OpenOffice is fine. You can also you the Google or Apple cloud apps – you don’t even need a programme on your computer it all works through your web browser.

    To organise what you have it would seem logical to have a few columns
    Date, Item, Income, Expense

    eg 11/6/2014, Inner tube, blank, £3 – the blank is in the income column as the item is an expense

    You could add a category (leisure, household, savings etc)

    The trick will be how you analyse the data – there is an Excel tool called Data Table which will be useful for you – you can use it to see how much you’ve spent in a given month, how much on a given category etc

    mogrim
    Full Member

    There is a ‘For Dummies’ book on Excel, which shouldn’t be more than a tenner.

    I wouldn’t get that if you’re using OpenOffice, though!

    Edit: should say why. Basically, once you get past adding and subtracting you’ll need to use formulas, and although a lot of them will do the same thing you’ll discover the names are different, or there will be subtle differences in the values they use, etc.

    OpenOffice Calc is the right tool for the job, and while it’s nothing like as good as Excel it’ll certainly be up to doing your expenses.

    There are a whole load of tutorials here, I’ve had a flick through the first and they seem well written: http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/category_index/spreadsheet.html

    jambourgie
    Free Member

    That’s exactly the kind if thing I want to do, thanks! At the moment, I’ve just got a diary and a big wad of receipts. I’d like to ‘digitize’ all that data and analyse it in various ways. I assume this is what spreadsheets are good for.

    mogrim
    Full Member

    To organise what you have it would seem logical to have a few columns
    Date, Item, Income, Expense

    eg 11/6/2014, Inner tube, blank, £3 – the blank is in the income column as the item is an expense

    To move on from that, you would add a column that calculates a running sum, or you could calculate (price x number of items) to work out costs, etc. If you can claim milage, for example, you could enter miles and automatically calculate the claim amount.

    One thing you might want to have a look at are templates, for example this one: http://templates.openoffice.org/en/template/personal-budget – it could be easier just to start with that, and modify according to need.

    Edit: to see what it’s actually doing in the background you can show the formula it’s using to calculate stuff. See here.

    edlong
    Free Member

    You can also you the Google or Apple cloud apps

    Anyone find them useful in the real world? I’ve tried to use the google version (“Sheets”?) and it did my head in – I just want to do simple stuff like drag a cell corner down to autofill – apparently not. Wanted to paste something as values, no, apparently not on the tablet version I was on…. is it worth persisting, or is it not very useful?

    EDIT: Also, on cloud based stuff like google, I’m assuming that macros aren’t a thing you can do – is that the case?

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    OP @mogrims tip on templates is a good one, especially to start with

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @edlong – yes I’ve used them for simple stuff. No they cannot do macros nor many other features but they are good for simple basics. I use the Apple ones a lot now especially Pages as I can create docs on my Mac or iPad and then edit/update them on a Windows PC if necessary.

    jambourgie
    Free Member

    I’ll check out the templates. Great idea. I always thought it’d be easiest to look at someone else’s and have them show me what’s going on, but it’s usually private or sensitive information so not really an option.

    Enough to be going on with anyway so thanks all.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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