Testimonials

Hi Steven, Many thanks for the holiday spreadsheets, they are just what I have been looking for, I really do appreciate it. Kind Regards Donna

I think your Gantt chart spread sheet is fine for where I am at the moment. We’ve already changed a few things around which will shorten our house buying process by a week.
thanks Paul Ramsey.

I was going to write similar spreadsheets from scratch but yours will free up some time for me to do other stuff – many thanks in advance.
Catherine Shaw

Hi Steven I have just read a number of forums which lead me to your wonderful web page that has just the program I have been looking for, being the ‘Holiday Tracker’ If possible I would love to be able to download this, and am hoping you can assist. Thanks so much.
Laurina INGRAM

Hi Steven, I’m interested in your holiday / sickness tracker spreadsheet and after looking at a few similar options think yours offers the best mix of functionality, simplicity and reporting. Can you forward me the relevant details – many thanks. We are a 40 employee company. Regards David Bernard

Hi Thank you for your fast response; this is just what I am looking for. I really like the fact that the dates scroll with the page so you always get the information tying up correctly. I take it if the dates are changed in all the sections it sets the calendar with the year. Thanks for your help.
Andrew Borland

Steven, Thanks very much for your quick response. After a quick look this morning I think this will be perfect. We are looking to set up a new system with effect from Jan 08. The system used here so far is a bit slap dash for my liking so I am hoping to lick it into shape. I think your system will achieve the desired results. Thanks again, will recommend others check out your site.
Regards Diane Marsh

Steven, I have looked through the tabs etc and I think they will be just the job for me. Thanks for your help on this one. They are easy to use and very visual so you don’t fall asleep when inputting your data. regards Daman Hillyer

Steve, Many thanks for the holiday sheets. Impressed by how quickly you have responded and the actual spread sheets. I will put them to our directors and see if they like it. Once again thanks.
Regards Steve Reed

Good Grief Steven, this is a powerful model, I have hardly started with it and it’s addressing precisely the areas that I had been seeking to determine. I had calculated – product-by-product – that my business made sense once up & running: but in accruing it all into sales and P&L I was challenged for a business / accounting model to show how it would reach that stage. I searched the internet with the hope of finding a good example of a business plan – your tool is so much more. In fact, my initial funding request generated very strong negative feedback – about a lack of forecasting and planning. Your “business idea tester” has so far done more than plug that hole, it’s providing an entire superstructure (I already had decent foundations having researched my costs and sales prices in detail, having some expertise in this area). Part of my business plan is a subscription model – so I changed your spreadsheet to generate cumulative total in one of the product sales rows, it works very well, but the pay-per-view unit sales of 5p are far more numerous and less significant than the higher unit sales of £20k – so the aggregate total number of sales is looking a little meaningless at the moment. In truth it’s a test of spirit to fill out all the fields for start-up costs etc It is forcing me to deal with the realities. These boil down to the fact that my start-up capital requirement is higher than I’d thought (I’d tried not to think about it for fear of losing faith in yet another idea) and my sales projections make me realise how hard I am going to have to work to push the products and services until we build inertia. I am still ploughing through, and will keep you posted, but wanted to send an early “thanks” as it is already proving so useful.
With regards, Michael Langridge

Hey Steve That’s amazing. My skills at excel are poor due to non use and I think that spreadsheet is awesome!!! Those formulas are impressive. I will use this for each year now with a quick and simple modification. Can’t thank you enough. I will buy you a pint the next time your over in the UK. ha ha ha….. Thanks again, am over the moon!!!!
Cheers, Paul

Hi Steven, Just to let you know that i received your Holiday Planner and I think that it is absolutely fantastic, this is going to make my life so much easier. Thank you very much.
Regards Taz

Hi Steve, Thanks very much for the spreadsheet. It is perfect for what I was looking for, I do Admin for a team at work, this is excellent.
Regards, Nathan Gregory

Hi Steven I think this spreadsheet may save my sanity!!
Sandi Archibald

Hi Steve That’s brilliant thanks so much, just what I was looking for, makes life so much easier having clever helpful people like yourself about.
Cheers, Gemma
Follow up message-
Thanks Steve yes we did inherit this method, but its fine I can work around it the fact that we have this wonderful tool is good enough. Don’t worry about the part time hours I have just changed the days to hours so works perfectly. Once again thanks for all your help the office love it !!
Gem

Received with thanks. It looks as though it will meet our requirements exactly.
Alan Pomroy

Hi Steven, The Holiday tracker spreadsheet is superb! Just what I’m looking for and will save me loads of time!!!
Best Regards, Colin

Hi Steven, I found your 2007 tracker really useful. Have you put together a 2008 version and if so, can you send me a copy.
Many thanks, Peter.

I am jut about to start writing an excel sheet to track leave entitlements / days taken when I checked the net and found your generous offer. If it is still open I would appreciate a copy of your version to save reinventing the wheel. Thanks in anticipation.
Alan Sorah

Hi Steven, I have set these up and they are great! Thank you very much! Saved me from a couple of late nights!
Thanks, Rach

Hi Steven, It is good. Helps me do what I wanted. Thanks a lot for your help.
Andy Duckworth

Steven, We appreciate your sending this tool. I loaded our tasks, dates, and duration and updated, then like magic it worked! Thanks for this tool.
Lynn Hoover

Steven, Thank you very much, I appreciate your kindness in sharing this, and will let you know how it works for me.
Pieter Roux

Steven I would like to say a big thank you. I have found the worksheets very easy to use and they have solved my problem. I really appreciate your assistance. Thank you.
Kinds Regards Val

Hi Steven, First of all, my greatest thanks to you for your spreadsheet on Excel. It is an excellent guide and aid for those thinking of starting new businesses, which I am sure you have been told on numerous occasions. I am a student at DeMontort University and am doing a project which involves starting up a new business. This involves the preparation of a business plan as well as a final presentation. It is a shame that I just came across your spreadsheet today when the deadline is tomorrow for the business plan. Thank you for your time in reading my email and I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience.
Thank You, Zainul Mussa

That’s great Steven, thanks. I tried putting one together myself but it didn’t come out as good as yours.
Thanks Brian Myers

Steven, Thank you so much. There are parts of your sheet that will help immensely. Cheers,
Kind regards, Stephen Chiappa

Hi Steven, many thanks for replying so promptly and for sharing the Gannt Chart Spreadsheet. I am pleased to say that I had a go today following your notes and formulae’s and have succeeded in creating my own Gannt Chart!! I did tweak my spreadsheet before I was able to make it work the way yours did. My spreadsheet had overlapping dates and blank lines (unlike yours) as my milestones overlapped in specific areas. Hence I had to alter it so that there are no overlapping of dates and blank lines. As I am rusty using Excel it took me a bit longer to create the X-axis however I got there in the end. Thanks to you I can now use your spreadsheet to map other Gannt charts which I might need to create in my course or at work in the future. If you have any other good tips on how to use Excel or other application packages either to calculate or create charts etc. which you do not mind sharing with others I would welcome them! Well done Steven and thanks once again.
Kind regards, Marthese Morris

Dear Steven, thank you so much for the worksheets. They worked brilliant for me and it was what i was looking for. Once again i really appreciate for sending me the program and i myself being a freelance graphics designer if there is anything i can help with graphically…..let me know and i will do my best to deliver your need.
Thanks a lot, Kiran Gurung

Hi Steven, thank you for sending these spreadsheets to me and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you. I have implemented them into another company I work for, Creative Photos Ltd and found them to be ideal for our needs. They have also inspired me to work on improving a timesheet that I maintain for our 50 plus employees. Each month I have maintain this for our part time employees who work all manner of hours and then the data is inputted manually into Iris Paymaster. The work on clearing the previous months hours, bonuses, holidays, expenses etc can be quite tedious but your spreadsheet has gone someway to help me improve the way I work. I have a blog http://linkslifeandhealth.blogspot.com (in its very early days) and with your blessing I would like to put a write up and a link to your site as I think it is most useful to others.
Kind regards, Vanessa

Hi Steven , thank you very much for the information (and Gantt Chart spreadsheet). I discovered after emailing you that our IT department were able to organise the project package to be uploaded onto my system. They are offering training sessions too!!
Thanks again. Cathy

I’m pretty new to the culture of project management, so thank you for sending me this easy-to-use Gantt chart. I’ll send you a note if I have any ideas.
Mike

Hi, I am interested in using your spreadsheet. How come there is no fee?
Jayne Bond
Follow up: Hi, Thank you so much they are great! It is such a time saving idea. Thanks for all your help.
Regards Jayne Bond x

Cheers – I think this will make life a lot easier!
Alan Cooke

Hi Steven, I wonder if this is a real proposal… Too good to be true!
Yours sincerely, John Vrakking

Absolutely fantastic service Steve!
Karen Colburn

Hi Steven, please accept my sincerest apologies for not emailing you sooner. Thank you for providing me with the spreadsheets. They are proving to be very valuable tools as our business is growing.
Kindest regards, Paul Gardner

Hi Steven, I was wondering if you are still providing the Flexi Holiday Tracker and if so would love to get hold of a copy for 2009. I used it this year and it has been a wonderful management tool and enabled me to keep track of our numerous staff comings and goings! What else do you do? Keep up the good work.
All the best Diana Stephens

Steven, It is that time again – is there any chance to get these spreadsheets. I use them almost on a daily basis……
Regards, Rory

Good morning Steven, Thank you very much for forwarding on your spreadsheet. I found it very helpful, hassle free and very quick & easy to use.
Rgds, Grace

Hi Steven thanks for the sheets they are exactly what I was looking for. Everyone visible on one page. Again thanks Claire

Steven, I have previously used your holiday tracker and found it very good. Could you please send me another copy of it. Regards, Mick

Hi Steven, Many thanks for your Gantt Chart spreadsheet. I have now given my lecture on programming to our 3rd Year students and they have been using a combination of MS Project and MS Excel. The Microsoft website make recommendations on using Excel to produce a Gantt chart using horizontal bar charts, which we have done. Your spreadsheet appears to follow the same principle, but clearly your standard of presentation is much more advanced. MS Project is an expensive piece of software and the occasional user in a small organisation would be reluctant to pay out for this. The MS Excel requires a certain level of expertise in spreadsheet use. So I think there may well be a market for your spreadsheet Gantt Chart, for people who need a simple to use package to produce a straightforward Gantt chart, provided it is at a very reasonable price. I hope this is of some help. Regards, Steve Jones Senior Lecturer Department of Engineering University of Liverpool

Steven, have given your spreadsheet to 5 pupils (16 years old) 2 I have shown how to use and 3 I have not. I will let you know the feedback as soon as they have completed the exercise for their project work. I found it easy to use and complete so I am sure that it will be very positive.
Many thanks and kind regards Chris

Hi Steven, Thanks so much received the spreadsheets today and inserted all holidays and sickness straight away, already I can see that its going to be so much better than what we had, and was very easy to understand and use. We have only a small office, but it was still hard to keep an eye on what was happening. Thank you very much.
Kind Regards, Nicola Saxelby

Hi Steven I just wanted to say thank you very much for sending me your spreadsheet and wanted to tell you how good and easy to use it is!! I am the HR coordinator for a relatively small training company so don’t have the access to large company tracking systems so have always relied on my own system, which was similar to yours but yours is better in terms of being able to visually see the whole month on one page, its easy to print off as well and give to line managers to enable them to see who’s off and when.
Kind regards & thanks again, Michelle Phelan

Hi Steven, Thank you so much.. I think I love you.. LOL  ) Just goes to show that a little politeness gets you a long way… Thank you again, I will let you know how I go along with this project.
Have a good evening Jackie Bradford

Dear Steven, I don’t know how to thank you, this was what I am looking for. I appreciate your help.
Best Regards, Hani Abou Al Aynien

Thanks so much for these… They’re absolutely fantastic!! Being able to change the year and swap the tabs around… It’s exactly what we were looking for I can’t thank you enough for offering it free of charge!