Excel & Spreadsheet Design
- Are you looking to start a new Excel project?
- Do you have an Excel project that needs amending?
- Would you like a free quote for your project?
If you answered yes to any of the above, call us now on 01747 822616 or fill out an enquiry form and find out how we can help you.
Typical Excel projects cost:
- Small amendments - £53 per hour
- Small systems - Up to £500
- Medium systems - £500 - £2000
- Large systems - £2000+
Examples of Excel projects we are involved with are budgets and consolidation; setting up input forms, computation and graphical output; automation of monthly data analysis.
Recent projects we have completed:
- Biffa - accounts and budgeting
- Wessex Park Homes - production register
- CES (Catholic Education Service) - national school survey
FREE Consultation - what you get:
- Free 10 - 20 minute phone consultation
- Chance to talk through your project with a spreadsheet expert
- Friendly, jargon-free advice on your project
- An honest assessment of your project. If we don't think you need something - we'll tell you!
- Fill out an enquiry form here and we'll call you back or call 01747 822616 to speak to someone right away.
Why choose Microsoft Excel?
- Many office tasks can be automated saving you time and money
- To produce files for engineering and other industries
- For consolidating large data files
- To do calculating for estimates etc
- To manipulate data files
- For time-sheet handling
- For simple database applications where users don't have a database package
Excel Spreadsheets for all purposes:
- Small business accounts
- Sales records etc
- Time Sheets
- Data Manipulation tasks
- Automated file production
- Data Acquisition from emails or your file system
Software Matters have been experts in Excel and spreadsheet design for over 14 years. We can help with all projects, whether it be a simple single sheet workbook to a more complicated application that links to a database.
Microsoft Excel, using its Visual Basic for Applications programming language, can integrate very well with other Microsoft Office applications including MS Access. Thus, data entered in Excel can then be used to update your main database.
Exel Project Case Study - Biffa
Nearly everyone is familiar with Excel spreadsheets which are very widely used throughout Industry and Commerce. It is easy to set up a simple spreadsheet and obtain results very quickly. However, spreadsheets can easily grow and become unmanageable and checking them can be difficult. When using linked spreadsheets, errors in one sheet can permeate through to others. For very large or complex spreadsheets it often makes sense to contact an expert in spreadsheet design.
The trucks and wheelie bins of waste management company Biffa are well known throughout the country. They collect a range of different types of waste, recycling it or taking it to landfill as appropriate. When Biffa was looking for the right tool to assist them with their budget projections and forecasting, they contacted Software-Matters for advice.
Biffa explained that they had a huge amount of data that needed careful structuring. Complex rules apply to the way in which they account for plant and vehicle depreciation and capital expenditure. Biffa wanted to be able to apply local or global percentage increases to any or all of their costs and income streams to predict next year’s budget, and help with forecasting the resources required. Local managers need to be able to access and change the figures for their depots, and higher level managers need to be able to view the whole picture, with consolidations at various levels.
Biffa’s work is subject to seasonal variations. For example, they need more agency staff at certain times of the year, and the proportion of different types of waste collected will vary from winter to summer. The solution needed to allow this variation to be incorporated into the budget projections.
Software-Matters provided Biffa with a suite of linked Excel spreadsheets to handle their budget projections. The spreadsheets use complex formulae to calculate each depot’s monthly income and expenditure in a wide range of cost areas. Regional sheets cover all the depots in a region, and are consolidated upwards towards one final spreadsheet showing the overall picture. Users can easily view and print budgets for individual depots or regions, preformatted and correctly laid out and labeled.
In a multi-user situation, good spreadsheet design includes controls and protection to prevent users from being able to make inadvertent changes or mistakes, and to enforce consistency between users, so Software-Matters ensured that all sheets are appropriately protected, and that data entry is only possible in the correct areas.
Software-Matters used Excel macros - sections of Visual Basic code - to provide buttons on the spreadsheets to help with routine tasks. For example, using the button provided to print a sheet will ensure that the page is correctly formatted, and that any areas of the spreadsheet where no figures have been entered will not be printed, an important consideration when individual sheets run to 20 or more pages, and each spreadsheet may contain 10 to 15 worksheets.
It is important to design spreadsheets with a view to the future, to allow flexibility and evolution when systems and methods change, and requirements and the type of reporting required may vary from year to year. Software-Matters designed the first set of spreadsheets in the mid 1990’s, and have evolved them over the years to cope with changes in reporting structures and accounting practices.
Biffa have been using these spreadsheets for about 15 years now, and find that having all the information at their fingertips helps them to increase efficiency and stay in control as the business grows. |
