Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet program, and it has a number of uses in the business world. If you own a business, you can use Microsoft Excel to create customized financial statements, balance sheets and income statements to present to investors and partners. Once you have those financial spreadsheets in place, you can easily update them each quarter to provide the most relevant data for your business.
Step 1
Download a financial statement template from the Microsoft Office website (see "Resources"). You can, of course, create the statement from scratch, but using a pre-made template speeds the process and reduces the chances that you will make a mistake. These templates include the formulas needed to calculate income and expenses, along with placeholders you can use to customize your own statements.
Step 2
Gather all the financial information from your business. Have that financial data ready before you start building your statement from the template.
Step 3
Open Microsoft Excel and the template you downloaded. Replace the placeholder text with the name of your company.
Step 4
Enter the financial information you gathered -- such as revenue and operating expenses -- directly into the template. The formulas in the template should automatically update each time you enter a new number. Continue to populate the template with your own financial information, then save the completed document to your hard drive or network share.
Step 5
Review the information in your financial statement and look for errors. One of the most common problems with Excel spreadsheets, especially those built from templates, occurs when the number entered is too large to fit in the assigned column width. Look for cells that display a "#####" instead of the actual number, then work on correcting those errors.
Step 6
Move your cursor to a corner of the column containing the "#####" display. Grab a corner and drag the mouse to the right to widen the column until you see the number displayed. Click "Save" to save the updated spreadsheet.
Step 7
Click the "Office' button in the upper left hand corner of the spreadsheet and choose "Save As" from the menu. Give the spreadsheet copy a name like "Monthly Template" and save it to your computer. You can use that template to create future financial statements as needed.