Creating an expenses record spreadsheet in Excel

Transcription

1 Creating an expenses record spreadsheet in Excel 1. Open a new workbook in Microsoft Excel. 2. Highlight the first row of cells (each small box on the screen is called a cell) from A to Q. To do this, left click in cell A1. A black line border will appear around the cell, with a small box at the bottom right-hand corner of the cell. Place the cursor exactly over that small box; the cursor will change to a small cross (+). Hold down the left mouse key and drag the cursor across to cell Q1. As you move the cursor, the border around the first cell will follow you to show the cells you have selected. Right click anywhere in the highlighted area A1 to Q1. 1

2 3. Select Format Cells from the drop-down menu. 4. Now select the Alignment tab. 2

3 5. Select the Merge cells option and then click OK. 6. The cells in row 1 from A to Q should now be merged into one long cell. 3

4 Place the cursor between the 1 and the 2 on the left-hand side of the screen until a black cross ( ) appears. Click and drag this line down to make the top row deeper 4

5 7. Left click anywhere in the large cell you have just created or in the field in the toolbars next to 'fx' and type in the heading Expenses record sheet for August. Choose any font you like for the heading. The font used here is Arial, size is 20 point, formatting is bold and centred. If you are not recording your expenses in August, type the appropriate month in your heading. 8. Left click in cell A3, and type Date in this cell. Then press the Enter key to move to the cell below. 5

6 9. Type the number 1 in this cell then press the Enter key to move to the cell below. Repeat this for the number Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of cell A4, then click and drag to the bottom right-hand corner of cell A5 so that cells A4 and A5 are highlighted. 6

7 11. You are going to use this column (column A) as the Date column, so you will need the numbers 1 to 31 (for the days in August) recorded in this column. To do this, place your cursor at the bottom right-hand corner of cell A5, wait for the + to appear, then click and drag down the column to cell A34. When you release the mouse button, the numbers 3 to 31 should fill the rest of the highlighted cells. (Alternatively, you could type in the numbers 3 to 31 yourself.) 7

8 12. Click in cell B2, the place the cursor at the bottom right-hand corner of cell B2 and drag across to the bottom of cell C2 so that cells B2 and C2 are highlighted. 13. You want to merge these two cells, so use the same procedure you used earlier: right click anywhere in the highlighted area select Format Cells select the Alignment tab select Merge cells select OK. 8

9 14. Place the cursor at the bottom right-hand corner of cell C2. Click and drag across to cell Q2. This formats the selected cells in row 2 in the same way that you have formatted cells B2 and C2, that is, pairs of cells will be merged. 15. Now let s add some headings across row 2. These will be: Housing Utilities Transport Food Education Medical Personal Miscellaneous. 9

10 16. Click in cell B3 and type in the heading Item. Click in cell C3 and type in the heading Cost. 17. Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of cell B3. Click and drag to the bottom right-hand corner of cell C3 so that cells B3 and C3 are highlighted. 10

11 18. Place the cursor at the bottom right-hand corner of cell C3 and click and drag across to the bottom right-hand corner of cell Q3. This will copy the heading from the two highlighted cells into the rest of the selected cells. 19. Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of cell A2. Click and drag to the bottom right-hand corner of cell Q3, then select the Bold and Center options from the toolbar to format the text. 11

12 20. Click in cell A35 and type the word Total. 12

13 21. Save this as your master template for recording expenses. Now copy and paste this worksheet onto another sheet for future months. Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of cell A1, then click and drag to the bottom right-hand corner of cell Q35 to highlight these cells. Click on the Copy icon in the toolbar at the top of the worksheet. 13

14 22. At the bottom left-hand side of your worksheet you will find three (or more) tabs called Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 and so on. You are currently on Sheet1. Select Sheet2. This will open a new blank worksheet. Now click on the Paste icon in the toolbar at the top of the worksheet. This should paste a copy of your Expenses record for August into this worksheet. Double click in the cell with the main heading and change the month to September (or whatever the relevant month is). Make as many copies as you think you will need. 14

15 Your expenses record sheet is now ready to be used. Before you start recording your real expenses, let s have a practice run. Completing the expenses record spreadsheet Let s suppose that, during one week in August, you spent the following amounts of money on the specified items. Date Item Cost ($) 06/08 Fare saver bus ticket /08 T-shirt /08 Physio /08 Lunch /08 Ice cream /08 Stationery /08 Haircut /08 Birthday present /08 DVD hire Record these items in the appropriate column opposite the given date. For example, the first item you bought was a bus ticket on 6 August. To record this, locate 6 in the Date column, then move along this row (row 9) to column F. Columns F and G are where you will record all your transport expenses. In cell F9 type bus ticket, and in cell G9 type in the cost of the ticket ($10.00). When you have finished recording all the expenses, your record sheet should look something like the following sheet. 15

16 It can sometimes be difficult to decide which category an item belongs in. For example, you may have recorded the stationery and DVD hire in the Personal column. This is acceptable too, depending on what the item is being used for. Where you place an item will affect the total in that particular category but will not change the overall spending total. The next step is to calculate the total of each Cost column. The first Cost column with a number entry is column G. Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of cell G9 (where the first number is entered), then click and drag to the bottom right-hand corner of cell G35 (the totals row) so that most of G column is highlighted. 16

17 Note: It is not possible to record two different amounts in the same cell. If you want to record more than one item in the same category on the same day, you could do something similar to this: Item Doctor ($45) Medical Cost Pharmacy ($29) Each item has been recorded separately in the Item column and the total amount has been recorded in the Cost column. Now go to the toolbar at the top of the screen and click on the AutoSum ( ) icon. 17

18 Repeat this procedure for each column with number entries. Your worksheet should now look very similar to this one. And now for the grand finale! Let s find the overall total. Go to the Totals row (row 35). Place the cursor at the top left-hand corner of the first cell in this row that contains a number. In this case, it is cell G35. Now click and drag across the row to the bottom right-hand corner of cell R35 so that most of the Totals row is highlighted. 18

19 Click on the AutoSum icon in the toolbar at the top of the worksheet. The overall total should now appear in cell R35. The overall total for this week is $189. That may seem like a lot, but there are items in this week s spending that may not occur every week. For example, most people would not go to the physio or have a haircut each week. Source:, Department of Education Training and the Arts, Queensland