To be honest, building a spreadsheet from scratch can feel like you’re staring at a blank canvas with no idea where to begin. You know you need something to track your expenses, plan a project, or maintain a calendar, but the endless formatting, formulas, and fiddling often eat up more time than the task itself.
That’s why many people turn to ready-made Excel templates. After trying them myself, I realized I don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time I launch Excel. Templates save hours and spark ideas for layouts you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.
Now, instead of grimacing at a blank sheet all the time, I have a small library of favorites I use repeatedly.
Simple loan calculator and amortization table
Stop guessing loan payments
This template is exactly what it promises — simple. It has just a single sheet, and you only need to fill in four details: the loan amount, annual interest rate, loan period in years (use decimals for months — e.g., 0.5 for six months), and start date of the loan (today’s date is set by default, but you can change it).
Once you’ve entered the numbers, Excel does the rest. The template generates a clean payment schedule that shows exactly how much you’ll owe each month.
The figures are formatted in USD by default, but it’s easy to switch. Just select the cells (hold the Ctrl key to grab multiple at once) and expand the Number group on the Home tab. From there, choose Accounting, pick your preferred currency symbol, and click OK.
With this template, you don’t need to create or adjust formulas yourself. Everything is already built in, so after entering the numbers, you instantly get a straightforward breakdown you can understand at a glance.
Any year custom calendar
Build a calendar that fits your year
If you like having a calendar you can print, customize, and actually write on, this template is a gem. It comes with 13 sheets — one about page and 12 monthly sheets. The About page isn’t just instructions; it’s the engine that drives the whole calendar. Here, you’ll enter the year and pick your preferred starting day of the week (Sunday is 1, Monday is 2, and so on). Don’t delete this sheet, because the rest of the calendar depends on it.
Once you’ve set those options, the 12 monthly sheets automatically rearrange to match. Each month is neatly formatted and ready for printing. You can also change the look of the calendar by going to Page Layout –> Themes, or you can keep the default design. Either way, the layout is clean, professional, and easy to use.
I find the boxes big enough to jot down bills, deadlines, or daily reminders. You can even add notes directly inside the sheet, like typing in cell C6 for extra details, before printing the sheets. That makes it just as useful as a wall calendar, but with the bonus of being customizable and diary-like.
Monthly budget tracker
Keep your spending in check
This is the template I use the most. Every month, I compare my planned budget with what I actually spent, and this sheet makes that process far less painful. It comes with two tabs: a start sheet (basically an about page) and the tracker sheet, which is where all the action happens.
The Start sheet gives a quick overview of how the template works and explains some hidden notes built into the Tracker. Personally, I like leaving those instructions hidden because the layout looks cleaner that way. If you’re curious, you can just scroll through column A, and Excel will display the hidden text in the input bar. Alternatively, you can unhide the column, as it’s quite easy to do.
What I love most about this template is the organization. The spending categories make sense, and each one has a tidy set of rows underneath. You can edit them to fit your own expenses, but I’ve never needed to add more.
At the end of one month, I enter my projected income (in cells E4 and E5) and my projected costs (across the categories) for the coming month. As the new month goes on, I update my actual income (in cells E8 and E9) and plug in my actual costs. The template then calculates three numbers for you: your projected balance (projected income minus projected cost), actual balance (actual income minus actual cost), and the difference between the two.
I think it’s really cool to see your budget hits and misses at the end of the month in one fell swoop. I can’t say it’s helped me perfect my finances, but it definitely keeps me honest, and it pushes me to keep improving month after month.
Sales invoice tracker
Take the stress out of invoicing
Invoicing is one of those tasks that always seems harder than it should be. Between tracking customers, keeping invoices organized, and making sure the math is right, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This template reduces the stress by only requiring you to add your customers and their purchases.
The workbook comes with five sheets, each with its own job:
|
Sheet name |
What it’s all about |
|---|---|
|
About This Invoice Tracker |
A guide with tips for filtering and navigation. |
|
Invoice |
This is the star of the show. Pick an invoice number in cell G6, and Excel fills in your customer details, items, and totals automatically. Just add in your company info (name in B1, details in rows 4–5, footer in B41) and you’re one click away from a polished invoice you can print or email. |
|
Customers |
Your client list lives here (ID, name, address, etc.). |
|
Invoices – main |
A master log that keeps one row per invoice, with filters to track dates, clients, and payment status. |
|
Invoice details |
This sheet breaks each invoice into line items (up to 25 per invoice). For instance, if invoice #3-456-2 has 12 products, the Invoices – main sheet shows one row, while the Invoice details sheet shows 12. |
Here’s how I usually work with this template:
- Add or update customer info in the Customers sheet by right-clicking the last filled row and selecting Insert.
- Add or update rows in the Invoices – main sheet, assign an invoice number to each row, and select the client for each invoice from the dropdown list.
- Head to the Invoice details sheet to enter the products or services tied to that invoice. Update the Invoice # column for each product or service by selecting an invoice number from the dropdown list.
Once you’ve filled in these three sheets (in the above sequence), the Invoice sheet updates automatically once you select an invoice number. If you need to record more than 25 items for an invoice, you’ll have to split the items across two or more invoices. However, in most cases, 25 items are enough.
Since this is Excel, you can also brand the template to match your business. Go to Page Layout –> Themes, pick a palette, and instantly make the whole thing look more on-brand.
Why start from scratch?
If you search Excel’s online template library, you’ll find almost anything — checklists, family trees, semester calendars, and even an online QR code generator template. The four I’ve shared here are simply the ones I use most often, but there’s no shortage of options.
These days, it’s rare for me to start with a completely blank spreadsheet. Sure, there are times when building something custom makes sense, but most of the time, I don’t have to. With thousands of ready-made templates just a few clicks away, Excel gives you a head start on almost any task and saves you from wasting time reinventing the wheel.
