By: Thomas Van Blunk, Microsoft Excel Certified Expert 

Are you starting a small business or using a notepad to keep track of random financial transactions? If the answer is yes, you should be using Microsoft Excel which can be great for keeping track of those pesky daily transactions for your small business. It can also be used to track your own personal transactions. 

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program very commonly used to summarize and store data. Excel has several basic features and functions to assist your small business needs. To use Excel for entering, summarizing, and storing data transactions, you can either manually enter the data or use a smart table. A smart table is a feature which allows you to create a table from a dataset or compile a list of transactions. It also makes the dataset stand out compared to a regular manual table. 

Once the table has been created, you can add several features, including color themes, filters, and totals. Excel can also perform various functions, including mathematical calculations, text manipulation, date and time calculations, and more.

Excel also has several security features. You have the option to lock Excel sheets or entire workbooks. These options are located under the review tab. The lock sheet option will prevent others from making changes to an individual cell or to an entire sheet unless they have the password.

For more information, Excel offers several online videos and guides to assist you with basic and advanced functionality.