Make a messy spreadsheet useful

Clean up information, add formulas, and explain the important numbers. This course is in development.

Original course title & technical overview

Spreadsheet Cleanup and Simple Reports. Messy exports become clean tables with formulas that do not break, a one-page summary the owner understands, and a template they can refresh next month, built in Google Sheets with AI writing the formulas and you checking the totals.

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Illustration of a woman learning with a laptop at a kitchen table

2026 EDITION

What you can offer

Clean up information, add formulas, and explain the important numbers. This course is in development.

Detailed deliverables

A cleaned, structured workbook from the client’s messy export (sales, orders, expenses, inventory, a list), with consistent formats, duplicates and errors handled, a Clean tab, a Summary tab with formulas and two charts, a one-page plain-English summary, and a refresh guide so they can repeat it monthly.

Example service prices

$40 for a cleanup of one sheet under 2,000 rows, $90 for cleanup plus a summary report with charts, $200 for a monthly report template with a data-entry tab and a dashboard. Bookkeepers subcontract this at volume.

Planning estimate, not a promise

Finding clients takes time. There is no guaranteed timeline or income.

Tools (free plans have limits): Google Sheets (free) or Excel, ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini in Sheets, A CSV from the client’s system (Shopify, Square, QuickBooks, Etsy, a bank), A checklist for totals reconciliation

You will make

A data audit: what is in the file, what is wrong, what the owner actually wants to know
A Clean tab built from the raw tab with documented rules (never editing the raw)
A Summary tab with formulas that total, group and compare, reconciled to the raw
Two charts and a one-page plain-English summary with three findings
A refresh guide so the client pastes next month’s export and the report updates

Inside this course

4 lessons · 4 AI instruction templates · 4 worked examples · 3 exam versions · final practice project

Lesson 1 is open as a free preview, ready-to-use AI instructions included. Sign up free to unlock the rest and try AI instructions in the practice area.

1
What you will learn · 2 min
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2
Set up your tools · 10 min
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3
Audit the file and the question · 30 min
Never edit the raw. Profile every column, list the problems, and ask the owner the three questions the report must answer before touching a cell.
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4
Build the Clean tab with documented rules · 50 min
Formulas that normalize dates, numbers and text, de-duplicate, map categories and exclude junk, each rule written down, with a change log and a row-count reconciliation.
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5
Summary tab, charts and the one-page summary · 45 min
SUMIFS and QUERY that answer the three questions, comparisons to the prior period, two charts that each make one point, and a plain-English page with three findings and one suggestion.
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6
Make it repeatable and deliver · 30 min
A refresh guide, a data-entry tab for businesses without exports, protection on formula tabs, the hand-off call, and the monthly report retainer.
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7
Certification exam · 20 min
10 questions · 80% to pass · three versions, a retake is never the same test.
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8
Final project: A sales report for Wick & Willow · 75 min
A sales report for Wick & Willow: graded on 5 criteria, pass at 15/20.
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9
Check your work · 15 min
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10
Feedback and certificate · 5 min
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11
Publish your service · 20 min
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Final practice project: A sales report for Wick & Willow

A practice assignment from Wick & Willow (Hand-poured soy candle shop on Shopify, Etsy and Amazon Handmade). You will see the scoring guide (rubric) before you start.

What we check	What earns the full 4 points
Brief followed	Both months and both channels handled; the three questions answered; all five deliverables
Integrity	Raw untouched; every rule documented; manual fixes logged; rows, totals and IDs reconcile
Formula quality	Formulas tested on edge rows, no visible errors, mapping tables used, keep flag correct on duplicates and subtotals
Communication	Charts make one point each; the summary is plain, numeric and forwardable; the data-quality line is honest
Repeatability	Guide is followable by a non-technical owner; refresh with month two works and reconciles; protection set

Honest expectations. A wrong total in a report costs the client more than the report cost. The whole method is reconciliation: raw totals equal clean totals equal summary totals, every time, and a note of every row you changed or removed. AI writes formulas fast and wrong often; you test every formula on three rows by hand.