How to Create Invoices From Excel 2007

By Brent Watkins

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With Microsoft Office 2007, using an Excel spreadsheet for customized business invoices can be the most cost-effective solution to assist in the management of your small business. Online templates from the Microsoft Office website are integrated directly into Excel for easy access. You can browse from dozens of templates that are customized for different kinds of businesses. You can use the templates as is or as a foundation for building an invoice suited for your particular business. Using templates, the hard work of creating and duplicating the mathematical formulas has been done for you.

Step 1

Open Excel 2007, and select the Microsoft Office Button in the upper-left corner of the window, and then select “New” from the menu.

Step 2

The New Workbook dialog box features a list of template categories in the left margin of the window. In the “Microsoft Office Online” section, click on “Invoices.”

Step 3

Browse the library of existing templates. Your choice will depend on what kind of business you have and what information you want included on your invoice. For our example, we will choose a specific template, but the following steps could apply to any template in the library. Select the “Sales Invoice – Blue Gradient Design” template.

Step 4

Customize this invoice by adding your own logo. Double-click on the box in the upper-left corner of the worksheet. Note how the Excel 2007 menu changes to reveal the picture tools. Click on “Change Picture” in the Adjust group on the Office Fluent Ribbon, and browse to an image of your company logo. Excel will automatically resize your logo and place it within the box. If your logo is too small, drag the corner to resize. You may need to add rows to move the remaining text beneath your resized logo.

Step 5

Don’t like the blue gradient image in the header? You can change the color by clicking on the center of the blue gradient and then right-clicking and selecting “Format Shape” from the menu. Select from the Preset Color menu options to adjust the colors to your preference.

Step 6

Now change the way discounts are applied. This template allows discounts in dollar amounts, but what if you want to apply discounts according to percentage? You can reformat the column and even modify formulas to further customize the template.

Step 7

Add your company name and whatever other text you’d like to continue personalizing the invoice. Remember, you can change font styles, cell formatting and any aspect of the template to make it unique to your business.

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