Excel Spreadsheet for order and payment tracking

[David Beasley]

My Excel tracking sheet is very simple. The items below are above each column on a 14inch sheet, in landscape orientation.

That's exactly where our Excel spreadsheet came from, the old ledger sheet system. Based right off our old National Brand 12-13-14 column green paper ledger sheet pads we used in the 80s and early 90s.

I setup the columns I wanted, made them each a proper length and setup for proper format (text/date/currency).

I've tried the database route, and it works fine - but it's overkill for my use.

I have updated the concept of the years, and have the multiple sheets in each file. I use filters to poll for outstanding fees, by date and by company, and have those appear on the sheets that underlay the main 12 column front page. My "paid/not paid" column is color coded and will appear in red when it's past due and shifts to blue when it has been paid.

I've even tried to fancy it up further by integrating our current system into a more full featured Access DB since Access obviously can integrate with Excel at a core level - but still, too much work just to log orders and track payments. One thing I've never done has been to use the order manager stuff in WinTotal. I'm sure it's highly functional, once you commit and convert to it, and learn how it works. I tried it early on, decided it was apparent that no working appraisers had been involved with its design, and haven't touched it since. Maybe some working appraisers did help design it, but they must have run appraisal mills...it's a tad much for the typical 1-appraiser 1-secretary shop.