Excel Templates

Using Excel to Organize Acquisition Plans for Startups

Posted on by Anthony James
15
Aug

Last week I was talking to Laura, a supply chain expert working in Singapore, about an acquisition project she’s involved in. Essentially, she was tasked with helping it expand its operations. They need to quickly acquire new hardware and software for both the existing staff (about 60) and new employees soon to be onboarded (~25).

As you can imagine, while this rapid growth is exciting, it does present a challenge: How can they manage this complex acquisition process efficiently with minimal disruption to daily operations?

As I know she’s a bit of a spreadsheet junkie, I suspected she’s use Excel to organize the acquisition plan. I wasn’t far wrong. Of course, while there are some very sophisticated spreadsheet tools out there, she chose to stick to Excel to reduce costs. Also, everyone has it on their PCs, so no need to acquire (no pun intended) new software. Google Sheets was an option for she preferred Excel. Let me know if you have a preference.

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How to use Excel for IT Acquisition Plan

We use Microsoft Teams for calls, partly because it generates a transcript of the conversation. I find this super helpful as I can tidy up the text and refer to it later on without having the re-watch the entire video. The transcript feature also helps if you want to capture key points for reports, internal training, and wiki pages.

Here’s an extract of the conversation we had about how to use Excel to manage acquisition tasks:

Ivan: Hi Laura, in these projects, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the acquisition tasks. If I were to start a similar project, how could I use Excel to organize all of the steps involved?

Laura: Ok, I’ll walk you through it. The first thing we want to do is avoid getting overwhelmed with oceans of data. So, let’s use a tool everyone is comfortable with – Excel – then start by creating separate sheets for hardware and software.

Ivan: Okay, I’ve created two sheets. What now?

Laura: In the hardware sheet, add columns for item name, quantity, estimated cost, and potential vendors. For example, list laptops, monitors, and peripherals.

Ivan: And the software sheet? Just to be clear: I use one file but create multiple sheets in it?

Laura: Yes, that helps with creating reports later on. It also makes it easier for version control. For the software, you can use the same structure, but list required applications and licenses instead.

Ivan: Makes sense. What about tracking the timeline?

Laura: Next, create a new sheet called “Timeline”. Add columns for tasks, start dates, end dates, and responsible team members. This will cover everything from initial planning to final deployment.

Ivan: Thanks for that. How about the equipment side of things?

Laura: In the same file, make a “Specifications” sheet. List each hardware item and software application, then detail the required specs or versions in the adjacent columns.

Ivan: Thanks, I like that all the info is in the same file. Lastly, how do we handle the budget?

Laura: Create a “Budget” sheet. Include columns for estimated costs, actual costs, funding sources, and payment schedules. This will help maintain financial transparency. One final tip is to make sure the cells are setup to handle financial values not text. In the Excel file, click in the cell you want to have a financial value, then right-click > Format Cells > Number > Number or Currency if you want to prepend $ to the cell.

Ivan: Got it, thanks that was easier to setup that I expected.

In the rest of the call, we setup a spreadsheet for vendor management. Laura created a sheet with bid requirements and submission guidelines. This ensures all potential suppliers have the necessary information to provide accurate quotes.

The Finer Points

By using spreadsheets to organize your acquisition plan, you can quickly track progress, manage costs, and ensure you get the right equipment for your team.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with a major acquisition project. However, if you break the project into discrete tasks, it suddenly becomes easier to manage.

You can download the Excel files I used in the startup project over here. Klariti designed these to work on all versions of MS Office. If you have Apple Pages or Google Sheets, you can use the Import function to open the spreadsheets.

Did you find this helpful? What’s the one thing about spreadsheets you’d like to know more about?

Anthony James