In earlier years predating the birth of the home computer, the most commonly know methods of tracking any given set of data was as simple as grabbing a legal pad or even a pad of graph paper, and charting of the basics of what ever it is you had set out to keep a record of. As easy as this may sound this also meant you had to sketch and map out each individual piece paper and the manually log in the data set as you go. This required hours of tedious and mind-numbing work crunching numbers and making sure to add all the required material appropriately.
One day to day aspect of life everyone should be familiar with is that is slowly becoming a thing of the past is that daily punch at the timeclock. You know the one, it has the little graph lines all lined up with the date next to them and you slip it into a machine that would punch a time stamp into it. At this point, someone would then have to thumb through each timecard one by one, being sure not to miss anyone during payroll. This is where my rambling finds its relevance with the obvious thing, I’ve chosen for my top which is the usefulness of Microsoft Excel, not only for big business but for startups as well.
I have spent years trying to find the best ways to organize and manage my time while at home and during work hours. I am a bit of an entrepreneur in my own right always researching trying to find equal measure between quantity and quality when it comes to making any customer happy. For the most part I run my own contracting service under a soul proprietorship. One major thing I always have an issue with is keeping track of my hours and my expenses while on the job. While working with Microsoft Excel I was able to find a few more than helpful online templates to help with this effort.
The top one I’ve used is called “Weekly Time Record Small Business1”(Timesheet, Excel). It’s a simple layout to begin with giving you a place for the day’s date at the top, followed by a basic chart of the week. The only thing required from the user is the input of the hourly rate at the bottom along with the number of hours worked in the weekly cells. This saves me a lot of hassle, time, and money as it creates a ledger to work from when doing invoices for customers as well as a payment history for any potential employees I may hire in the future. Then all I must do is have the employee sign off that the information is all correct when they get paid. This is just a small example of the kind of things you can do with Microsoft Excel. I personally use several different excel templates within my daily routine, as they help to keep track of anything and everything going in and out of my business.
References
“Weekly Time Record Small Business 1”, (Time Sheet), Excel,
