Written by Steven Brough on September 13th, 2008

Excel Formulas – Who Can Do Them For You Fast And Quick

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Some people use Excel for storing data, like lists of things, and this is fine, but if that is all that Excel was for we would all be experts. There are times when we need something more than that and that is when most people begin to struggle and opt to use web outsource services. Excel can be formatted in hundreds of ways, it can utilize multiple worksheets, it can be programmed to work with functions and even Visual Basic macros for Applications (VBA).

Who’s got a book on their shelf that tells you how to use Text formulas like “BAHTTEXT”, “LEN” or “CONCATENATE” when working with Text Strings. It’s such a good book because it also tells you how to use formulas like “SUM”, “AVERAGE” and other number based functions when working when numbers. I bet you are lost without it, in fact I bet most of it goes in one eye and out the other. There are 9 categories of functions with a total of 400 formulas. Try remembering a tenth of them and you realize the difficulty of this task and likely head off in the web outsource direction.

Yes, I know what you mean when I hear you say “Excel is too hard” or “I don’t have the time”. What if it was as easy as typing out a description of what you want, wouldn’t that be easier. True, it wouldn’t get the job done but there are people who will literally fight over the opportunity to do it for you. Hire a freelancer to do the job, let me tell you more.

See, the problem with Excel is that you would still know these formulas and how they work. If your Boss asks you to prepare a report in a manner that involves you to integrate couple of functions, you would be at a loss. You can always go on a course and learn all about it but unless your job involves working with Excel full time, you will not retain that knowledge.

Why ‘waste’ your time learning these functions? Outsource this task to a freelancer who rates himself an expert. Outsourcing this task again does not require you to manage the project. Why? You know what the inputs are to put into your spreadsheet and you know what to expect back, all you have to do is put that into words in a way that someone else can understand. Once your project description is complete you can pass it on to the freelancer to take care of all the in between work.

So all you need to do is get good at writing your project descriptions. Ask for exactly what you need, what you are willing to pay and when you need it buy. What? What you are willing to pay? Yes, you can name your price. You can give a maximum amount you are willing to pay for the job.

When you post your Excel job all the excel programmers who are registered with the website; people from Romania, India, The Philippines, China etcetera, etcetera. You will get an array of different bids within the hour, and then you just pick and choose. Oh! One other thing, if it all gets a bit overwhelming you have a safety net - cancel the project.