In this article, I will show you how to create a budget in Excel.

How to create a budget in Excel

first. Enter different types of income and expenses in column A.

Note: On the Home tab, in the Font group, you can use various commands to change the font size and font style of the text. Click the border to the right of column header A to increase the column width.

2. Enter the word Jan (January) in cell B2. Next, select cell B2, click in the lower right corner of the cell and drag it to cell M2. Excel will automatically fill in additional months.

3. Insert information.

4. Enter the SUM function in cell B6.

5. Select cell B6, click in the lower right corner of the cell and drag it to cell M6. Excel will copy the function and border to other cells.

6. Enter the SUM function in cell O4.

7. Drag cell O4 down to cell O6.

8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 for other expenses.

9. Add Short/Extra row.

Explain: I created two conditional formatting to highlight cells lower than 0 and greater than 0.

In addition, you can also view many other excel articles here.

In this article, I will show you how to use data validation to prevent users from going over their budget limit in Excel.

How to limit budget in Excel

1. Select the area B2:B8.

Note: cell B10 contains the SUM function that calculates the sum of the range B2:B8.

2. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click Data Validation.

3. In Allow, click Custom.

4. In Formula, enter the formula shown below and click OK.

Explanation: the sum of the range B2:B8 cannot exceed the budget limit of 100. Therefore, I applied data validation to the range B2:B8 (but not cell B10). Since this is where the values ​​are entered.

5. To double-check the formula, select cell B3 and click Data Validation.

6. Enter the value 30 in cell B7.

Result. Excel will display an error warning. You cannot exceed your budget limit of $100.

Note: to change the error alert content, go to the Error Alert tab.

In addition, you can also view many other excel articles here.