1. Making Your Spreadsheet Boardroom ready
Madison Modern Excel & Power BI
August 2015
Ben Niebuhr

2. When asked for a number, send insight
Think about why the question is being asked
What do you know that could be useful

3. Keep the customer out of the kitchen
Separate the data, preparation, and output

4. Use templates Record macros for frequent finishing touches
Set up a sheet with chart defaults you like, and paste them into sheets over and over again.

5. Treat your work as Art Give it a frame (Don’t use A:A or 1:1)
Signature at bottom (if you aren’t proud to have your name on it, it isn’t done!)

6. Assume that it will be printed
Add headers and footers
Logo to simulate stationary
Date printed, file path, file name, etc

7. Make it look “finished”
Hide unused cells, support sheets, gridlines and headers
Park the active cell (A1, under a chart, or off the visible screen)

8. Expect that it will be pasted into a slide deck