Spreadsheets
spreadsheets that do the part everyone gets wrong
Every one of these exists because there is a rule in the middle of it that a free template does not know about — a loss that has to be taken all at once, a yield that changes the cost of everything, a fringe credit divided by the wrong number. They are ordinary .xlsx files: no macros, no add-ins, and they open in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice.
Free workbooks you can download now
Twelve finished workbooks, free and hosted here rather than behind a checkout. Each one exists because it contains a calculation that free templates normally get wrong.
Excel Data Cleanup Kit
Paste a column, see exactly what is wrong with it, take back a cleaned version.
Weighted Grade Tracker
Grades that come out right when homework, tests and participation are worth different amounts.
Client Hours & Unbilled Log
Time across several clients, each with its own rate and rounding, and a running unbilled total.
Reorder Point Calculator
Tells you what to order today, and how many, instead of just listing what you have.
13-Week Cash Flow
What your balance will be each week for a quarter, and a warning before it goes too low.
Daily Sales, Waste & Par Levels
How much to prepare tomorrow, based on the same weekday over the last few weeks.
Trade Journal with Expectancy
Whether the way you trade actually makes money — not just whether the last one did.
Monthly Budget Tracker
Planned against actual spending by category, for one month at a time.
Debt Payoff Tracker
Snowball and avalanche side by side, so you can see what each order actually costs.
Subscription Tracker
Every recurring payment in one place, with the annual cost worked out.
Monthly Habit Tracker
A month of habits on one grid, with a completion rate per habit.
Mileage & Expense Log
Journeys and expenses logged the way a tax office expects to see them.
When Excel changes your data
The faults that happen on open or on paste, before you type anything — and which of them can still be undone.
Leading zeros disappear
Why 01234 becomes 1234, and the one import setting that keeps the zero.
Accents turn into mojibake
Niñal instead of Niñal. One import setting fixes it, and one export setting stops it.
Text silently becomes a date
SEP1, 1-2 and 3/4 all convert on entry. Why it is irreversible, and how to prevent it.
#N/A when the value is clearly there
Invisible spaces break exact matches. Why TRIM alone is not enough.
Everything landed in column A
Comma vs semicolon is a regional setting. Fix it on import, not in Windows.
SUM ignores numbers that look fine
Text that looks numeric is skipped by SUM, AVERAGE and every other calculation.
Barcodes become 1.23E+14
Scientific notation is cosmetic. The 15-digit limit behind it is not.
Formulas that do not behave as they read
Formulas that are doing exactly what they were told, which is not what you meant. Each one explained once, properly.
The $ sign, and why dragging breaks formulas
What $ actually locks, the four forms, and when each one is correct.
Formulas showing stale results
Calculation set to Manual is the usual cause. Five checks, in order.
Getting unique values from a column
UNIQUE if you have it, and three methods that work on any version.
What is in list A but not list B
COUNTIF on any version, FILTER on 365, and why matches fail.
Group by and sum
SUMIFS for a live figure in a fixed report; a pivot table for exploring.
Joining two sheets on a key
XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH and VLOOKUP compared, and why VLOOKUP breaks.
Totalling filtered rows
SUM ignores filters. SUBTOTAL and AGGREGATE do not — and they differ.
Empty-looking cells that are not empty
Why "" is not blank, what it breaks, and what to do instead.
Which COUNT function to use
What each one includes, and why the gaps between them are diagnostic.
Why =-3^2 returns 9
Excel binds the unary minus before the exponent. Where that quietly breaks results.
Filling a formula down a whole column
Double-click, Ctrl+D, a table, or a spill formula. When each one fails.
Cleaning a real export
One export, start to finish: which column to fix first, and the fault that is characteristic of that file.
A bank statement export
Amounts as text, negatives in brackets, dates in the wrong locale.
A student or class list export
Student IDs lose their zeros; names arrive in inconsistent shapes.
An inventory or SKU export
SKUs, barcodes and date-shaped codes — three failures in one file.
A CRM or contact export
Web-pasted invisible characters, phone formats, and duplicates that will not dedupe.
A payroll or timesheet export
Mixed hour formats, totals resetting past 24 hours, and lost employee IDs.
Power Query — clean it once, not every month
The sequel to all of the above. Power Query records the cleaning as steps and replays them on next month's file, so the work stops being manual.
Unpivot a wide table
A column per month becomes three tidy columns. Two clicks, and it repeats next month.
Reference a cell inside a query
The supported way to make a query read a value someone types in a cell.
Combine every file in a folder
Stack forty files into one table, cleaned the same way, refreshed with a button.
Merge two tables like a join
Inner, left, right, full outer and anti joins by name — and much faster than lookups.
Enable Load and Refresh, explained
Which queries write a sheet, which ones update, and why the file got so big.
Power Query or Power Pivot?
One shapes data on the way in, the other models it once it is there. Which to learn first.
One formula, many answers
Modern Excel lets one formula fill a whole column and resize itself. What that changes, and the errors it introduces.
#SPILL! explained
One formula, many cells — and what to do when there is no room to write them.
FILTER: every matching row
A live list of everything that matches, and the blank-becomes-zero trap.
SORT and SORTBY
A sorted copy that updates itself, without rearranging your data.
Your own function, no VBA
Name a formula once and call it like a built-in. No macros, still a plain .xlsx.
BYROW and BYCOL
One answer per row from a single formula, instead of a helper column filled down.
Text work that used to need a macro
Pulling a code out of messy text needed VBA for twenty years. It does not any more, and almost all the advice online still says it does.
Regex, built into Excel at last
Three functions that replace the macro everyone used to need.
Getting numbers out of text
Four methods, from one-line regex to something that works in every version.
Splitting text with a formula
TEXTSPLIT, TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER — and what to use if you do not have them.
Formatting that follows a rule
Where advanced actually begins for most people: the moment a colour is decided by a formula rather than a preset.
Format based on another cell
The formula rule, and the dollar signs that decide whether it works.
Highlighting duplicates
The built-in rule, and the formula versions it cannot do.
Rules that fragment on their own
Why one rule becomes forty, and how to stop it happening again.
Lookups past the basics
The last match rather than the first, the end of a growing column, and the references that are awkward to build.
The last match, not the first
The most recent price, status or reading — three ways, by version.
The last non-empty cell
The newest value in a growing column, without a range that goes stale.
The sheet name in a cell
One formula, two conditions nobody mentions, and why it sometimes shows the wrong tab.
Column number to letter
27 becomes AA, and back again. One formula each way.
When the file goes wrong
Getting unsaved work back, and removing the link to a file you deleted years ago that Excel still asks about.
Recovering unsaved work
Where the autorecover copies are, how long they last, and what to check first.
Links that will not break
Four places a link hides where Break Links cannot reach it.
Every workbook here has a checker sitting next to it that reimplements its maths from scratch in Python, recalculates the real file in LibreOffice, and compares the two. Where a product rests on an identity that must hold — a schedule that ties to the income statement, a break-even that has to balance to zero — the checker asserts that too.
Each page below tells you what the workbook does in plain language first, then shows the arithmetic and the checker's last result, so you can decide whether I have actually understood the problem before you spend anything.
Construction and contracting
Estimate the job, bill it, earn it, collect it, and know what the equipment costs. Five stages of the same money.
Construction WIP schedule
Percentage of completion with the loss rule most templates get wrong, plus fade analysis, income-statement tie-out and bonding ratios.
Electrical estimating template
Burdened labour rate, overhead recovery and margin-not-markup pricing for electrical work, with a 40-item price book and job costing.
HVAC estimating template
Burdened labour rate, overhead recovery and margin-not-markup pricing for HVAC work, with a 39-item price book and job costing.
Roofing estimating template
Burdened labour rate, overhead recovery and margin-not-markup pricing for roofing work, with a 37-item price book and job costing.
Concrete estimating template
Burdened labour rate, overhead recovery and margin-not-markup pricing for concrete work, with a 38-item price book and job costing.
Landscaping estimating template
Burdened labour rate, overhead recovery and margin-not-markup pricing for landscaping work, with a 40-item price book and job costing.
Progress billing and schedule of values
Payment applications with retainage taken net of prior retainage, stored materials kept separate, and six checks before you submit.
Construction cash flow forecast
S-curve revenue, split collection lags, retainage release and a line of credit — to find the month you run out of money.
Equipment cost per hour
What each machine costs per hour owned versus rented, the break-even hours, and which machines you should not own at all.
Certified payroll and Davis-Bacon fringe
Annualises the fringe credit over total annual hours, not Davis-Bacon hours — the error that creates back-wage liability.
Manufacturing and quality
The statistics that keep a customer audit happy, without a licence that costs more than the machine.
SPC control charts and process capability
Xbar-R, I-MR and p-charts with Western Electric rules, Cp/Cpk/Pp/Ppk, and a full AIAG Gage R&R study.
Design of experiments
A full 2^4 factorial with effects, ANOVA, a normal plot, Lenth's method and a curvature test from centre points.
Monte Carlo simulation
A working simulation engine in native formulas — 12 variables, 1,000 trials, five distributions and correlated inputs. No add-in.
Property and deal analysis
Ten-year proformas with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR and a sensitivity grid — for the asset classes nobody writes models for.
Self-Storage underwriting model
Ten-year proforma for a self-storage facility with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR, DSCR and a 5x5 sensitivity grid.
Car Wash underwriting model
Ten-year proforma for a express tunnel car wash with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR, DSCR and a 5x5 sensitivity grid.
RV Park underwriting model
Ten-year proforma for a RV park or campground with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR, DSCR and a 5x5 sensitivity grid.
Mobile Home Park underwriting model
Ten-year proforma for a mobile home park with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR, DSCR and a 5x5 sensitivity grid.
Laundromat underwriting model
Ten-year proforma for a laundromat with real amortisation, levered and unlevered IRR, DSCR and a 5x5 sensitivity grid.
Food and hospitality
Cost the plate properly, then find out which dishes are actually paying for the kitchen.
Importing and pricing
What a shipment truly costs once duty, freight and fees land on it — and what you have to charge as a result.
Grants and compliance
Budgets that have to survive somebody else checking them.
In development
Not finished, so not for sale. Listed because the free workbook's read-me mentions it, and a promise made in a download should be visible here too.
Data Reconciliation Workbook (Pro)
The free workbook cleans one column. The Pro edition is for reconciling two lists that should agree and do not: fuzzy matching for names and addresses, many-to-one matching with a running variance, an audit column recording what changed, and no row limit.
Tell me what you are trying to work out and I will point you at the right one — or tell you that none of these fit. Message me on LinkedIn.