Five sources for free Excel templates

by Beth Blakely | Aug 20, 2002 7:00:00 AM

Takeaway: Why reinvent the wheel when you can steal the tires from your neighbor's car? And why create a new Excel spreadsheet when a free template can take hours off your work time? Find the ones you need at these five sources.

Whether you’re preparing a cost analysis for a potential client or figuring out if your business is on track, it’s likely you use Microsoft Excel in some capacity. As a consultant with expertise in the most technical aspects of IT, you may have found that your software skills aren’t all they should be. That’s where templates come in handy.

Excel templates with preset formats or formulas can help make the most mundane tasks flow more quickly, or the most complicated tasks less cumbersome and time-consuming. TechRepublic has offered many templates for creating top-notch spreadsheets and workbooks; a variety of other sources on the Web also offer specialty templates. We’ve gathered links to five such sites for you. Perhaps you’ll find just what you need for free!

Sites offering free Excel templates
Please note that all templates offered by these sites are compressed. You’ll need software, such as WinZip or Attachment Opener, to unzip the files.

Matt H. Evans, CPA, CMA, CFM offers a listing of Excel templates gathered from around the Web. The site lists 55 templates, ranging from a spreadsheet to estimate the value of synergy in a merger and acquisition to a set of worksheets for evaluating financial performance and forecasting.
Corporate Training Partners offers Excel templates that demonstrate business principles, like price and trend analysis. The five templates offered include one for calculating Net Present Value.
L&M Business Designs, which produces custom Excel Templates, has some free and low-cost offerings. The 22 free templates include the newly added Calendar Maker and Telephone Database. Other templates range from $5.50 to $15 and can be purchased using PayPal for instant access. The site provides a free demo of many of the pay downloads.
Dave Hawley offers Excel templates that illustrate the program’s features on his site, OzGrid.com. The templates highlight features such as Advanced Filter, Dfunctions, Choose, Vlookup, Validation, and Index. Hawley offers explanations for each template’s function, like the FormsControls download that contains “clever uses of Option Buttons and Conditional Formatting.”
John Bayley offers three basic Excel templates among his list of free downloads: a time sheet, a telephone list creator, and weekly planner. Each template uses Visual Basic to fill in data or check that the form has been filled in correctly.

Where do you find templates?
Send us an e-mail and tell us about your favorite source for templates.

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