New Employee Worksheet: Fill & Download for Free

While there various ways to automate Excel, VBA is the only one that can live entirely within a workbook and not require running a setup program. People like being able to just send an automated workbook to others, without having to expect them to run a setup program. In some organizations, having to run a setup program is effectively a non-starter; they have to get permission, which requires justifying it to the authorities, and often permission is denied.Also, in my experience, clients tend to lose the setup program. I did an Excel project for a small business about 10 years ago, which required a setup program due to certain requirements. From then on , every time they hired a new employee or got new computers, they asked me to resend the setup program. It didn’t stop until they went out of business a couple years ago.Of course, if everyone is just passing around a workbook, that can lead to version control issues. But version control in Excel VBA projects is not hard:Have a worksheet at the far right with a cell for the full network path (\\ServerName\ShareName\…) to the official version of the workbook.On that same sheet, have a cell for the version number, and name it (Defined Name).Check version on startup (workbook open event), and alert the user if they are using an old version. Also open a Windows Explorer window on the official version’s folder so they can easily download it.If the workbook is so large it takes a long time to open that workbook from across the network, have a simple text file in the same folder with the version number, and check that file instead of the workbook.One reason often cited for not wanting to use VBA is that some other languages are faster. But in my experience, it’s easier and faster to just write the performance-sensitive stuff in a DLL in a faster language, and then call that DLL from VBA (“Declare Function MyFunction Lib MyDLL …”, or CreateObject if it’s a COM DLL), doing the non performance-critical tasks in VBA. If you don’t like the dated forms and form controls in VBA, then that DLL is a good place to do forms too.

When I started my first job, I had never used a computer or anything more sophisticated than an electronic typewriter. I was given the task of reviewing and re-writing the regulations for the various university prizes to a standard format, which had to be done on a Wordplex word-processor, one of only two in an office of over 80 people.A very charming and patient older lady showed me the basics and told me to call on her if I got into difficulties. I must admit that I spent the first day essentially terrified that I’d press the wrong key and blow up the University (a few years later, when PCs were introduced, I was still a bit of a Luddite, but by then I didn’t care if I blew up the University!)My “we don’t do that here” moment came when both word-processors were in use for more urgent tasks. Having nothing else on hand and no-one around to ask for a job, I decided to tackle the filing pile. I quickly discovered that the most dedicated application of brute force and ignorance would not suffice to cram another sheet of paper into the filing cabinets, so I looked for stuff that seemed sufficiently outdated to be discarded to make room. I was careful only to pull out things that hardly seemed worth filing in the first place, such as ten-year-old memos between my boss and her colleagues arranging lunch-meetings, order slips for stationery items long-since used and worksheets for repair jobs long over and forgotten, and I managed to make quite a bit of space and do most of the current filing.When my boss returned from a meeting, she looked over what I’d done, but refused to let me throw out any of the ‘junk’ papers I’d pulled from the cabinets. She had a fixed conviction that they would someday be of ‘historical interest’ and made me send them to Central Filing (where, I’m sure, they were as welcome as a pig in a mosque, and thrown out just as promptly!). I swear that woman kept every letter, memo, Post-it note and used teabag that ever crossed her desk!

Make 6 figures in revenue… or profit? The simple answer, 6 people working for you, and 2 houses a week at an average of $2,500 per move - you’ll get to $100,000 in revenue after 40 jobs - or 20 weeks.But after costs (I’m thinking about 75% of revenue), you’ll make $65,000 a year before taxes. So, one and a half years.Have 12 men, you’ll be there in 10 months. Have 24 men, you’ll be there in 5 months. But, you’ll have 9 moves some weeks, and 0 other weeks.You’ll have to put together a worksheet. You’ll list your costs. Such as, for example (rates will be different by market):3 men, $10/hour, for 30 man-hours to load a home to the truck = $300Benefits (like lunch or health insurance for full-time workers) $60 per jobInsurance - truck, liability, business, etc… $450 a month (spread out over each job)HR things:Background checks, training, advertising for new employees, orientation, etc… $340/each new employeeTaxes and state things: Federal and State taxes on income, worker’s comp, etc… Figure 26% of profitYou can charge $1,900 to $6,000 per move based on man-hours and distance and unloading and removing boxes after setup, etc…There are too many variables. I recommend learning the business from one that’s established, and go from there.