This is a guest post written by Paramdeep from Pristine. Chandoo.org is partnering with Pristine to bring an excel financial modeling online training program for you.
This is Part 6 of 6 on Financial Modeling using Excel
In this tutorial we are going to learn how to build assumptions & input sheets in our excel financial model. The 6 parts of this tutorial are,
- Introduction to Financial Modeling
- Building a layout for Project Evaluation Model – Best practices
- Building Inputs and Assumptions Sheet
- Building Projections for Project Evaluation
- Modeling the Cash Flow Statement and Projections
- Putting it all together – Final Project Evaluation Model
- Join our Financial Modeling Classes
I am sorry for the slight delay in the post. Things have been very hectic for the last few weeks as we were just completing our training on Financial Modeling in Excel – Real Estate (RE) sector for JP Morgan. The real estate valuation is very similar to the project evaluation that we are doing for the simple reason:
- Project evaluation and real estate valuation are limited duration projects (If you intend to sell the RE project in near future) unlike general companies (which are an on-going concern)
- For both these the timing of the cash is very important. A delay in the timing might appear to be ok for the developer, but the investor’s calculations (typically IRR) go for a toss
In India most of the RE developers are businessmen, who are concerned about the cash that the project generates. They are not really too bothered if they receive it in April or September (After all they are getting the cash). But the investors are really bothered by these delays – Some PE investors have a limited period investment horizon and some are too concerned about the IRR generated by the project. As we figured out in our class, Real estate projects are very sensitive to delays in cash generation! Excel is a great tool to show this effect in a matter of 30 secs (Use XIRR and data-tables). Maybe I will write about this functionality in one of my posts later!
For the time being lets come back to our project.
What is time value of money?
Let me start with a very simple to understand example.
- If you invest $100 in bank today, what would be its value 1 year down the line (assuming 10% interest rate)?
- The value should be 100*(1+10%) = $ 110.
- Now if you keep this invested for another year, what would be its value 2 years down the line?
- The value should be 110*(1+10%) = $ 121. I can also write it as 110*(1+10%)^2
- Similarly if you keep invested for 10 years, the value would be 110 * (1+10%)^10
This is the simple concept of compounding.
The inverse of this concept (What if you wanted $110 after 1 year, or 110*(1+10%)^10 after 10 years), how much should you invest today, is called discounting. Clearly $100 today is worth $110 a year after and $121 two years hence.

If I have more than 1 cash flows, I can discount them depending on the time duration and if I sum them all, its called Net Present Value (NPV) of all cash flows. We would take the outflows as Negative Cash and inflows as Positive Cash.

In excel, you can either discount all cash flows or calculate the NPV of the project by using the function =NPV(Discount Rate, Cash)

What is the rate on which money should be discounted?
When equity investors invest, they take greater risk as compared to banks lending money. Obviously their expectation of return would be higher. In some cases, the equity investor might have a return figure in mind (Based on the risk I am taking, I would like to have Min. 15% return on my invested money).
Sometimes, this expected return can be calculated by using the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). What this states is very simple – Equity investors want a premium apart from the risk free rate (Lets call this expectation of equity investors as Re) . So there are two parts to the return expectation:
Re = Risk Free + Premium apart from Risk free
Now this premium depends on how much risk I am taking (Typically measured with respect to the volatility in returns with respect to the benchmark index). So I say:
Re = Risk Free + Beta * (Market Returns – Risk Free Returns)
The beta measures the movement of your returns with respect to market returns.

Now apart from the equity investors, there would be some debt in the project. Typically debt holders expect a lower return (Lets call it Rd).
The overall expectation of return from the project is the weighted average of these returns, Re and Rd.

To create this switch in the model, I have used data-validation (so that the user can just input one of these options)

To create such a drop down, use data validation – list option in excel

Internal Rate of Return
The same concept can be viewed from a return angle as well. If I can calculate a discount rate that makes the present value of the expected cash inflows just equal to the initial cost of the project, then that rate would be sort of a break even rate for me (Considering the time value of money). This rate is called the Internal rate of return (IRR).

Many investors have a certain hurdle IRR in mind and if the project is generating an IRR less than the hurdle IRR, they would not invest in the project.
To calculate IRR, there is no analytical solution possible. You can use the excel function =IRR(Cash) to get the IRR of the cash flows.
Making a decision in our case
First let me summarize the decision criteria for you. I would invest in the project based on the following conditions:
NPV Rule:
- If NPV > 0: The project may be accepted (Please note that positive NPV is not a sufficient condition)
- If NPV = 0: The investor should be indifferent
- If NPV < 0: The project must not be accepted (Please note that positive NPV is a necessary condition)
Please note that sometimes people might decide to take on the project even though the NPV is negative!
IRR Decision Rule
- If IRR > the required rate of return, accept the project
- If IRR < the required rate of return, reject the project
In our case, we are getting the NPV to be 21 and an IRR to be 12%. In this case it’s a borderline case and my feeling is that Mr. Samar would invest in the project (After all Mohit is his son!!) J.
Download Project Valuation Templates
I have created a template for you, where the subheadings are given and you have to link the model to get the cash numbers! You can download the same from here:
Project Valuation Template – Blank
You can go through the case and fill in the yellow boxes. I also recommend that you try to create this structure on your own (so that you get a hang of what information is to be recorded).
Also you can download this filled template and check, if the information you recorded, matches mine or not! 😉
Project Valuation Template – Solution
I am just doing that for the single sheet model and recommend that you do the same for multi-sheet model as a homework problem. If you face any issue, post your excel with the exact problem and we can discuss the way to move forward.

Next Steps
We are not done with a basic model for evaluation of a project. There are other nuances that we could not tackle (Given the time and space constraint) – What if the cash does not come at year end, what could be the scenarios in which this project is not a viable project, what can be done to make the project more interesting, etc. I do hope that you found the posts interesting and look forward to your comments and suggestions!
Read previous part of this series – Modeling Cash-flow projections
How do you make project investment decisions?
We are very eager to learn from your experience and know your ideas. What methods of valuation do you use? How do you model them? Share using comments.
Join our Financial Modeling Classes:
Chandoo.org is partnering with Pristine to bring an online financial modeling training program for you. Click here to learn more about our financial modeling class & join.
Added by Chandoo:
Thank you Paramdeep & Pristine:
Many thanks to Paramdeep and Pristine for making this happen. I am really enjoying this series and learning a lot of valuable tricks about financial modeling.
If you like this series, say thanks to Paramdeep. I am sure he can take any amount of appreciation without choking.
Pristine is an awesome training institute for CFA, PRIMA, GARP etc. They have trained folks at HSBC, BoA etc. Chandoo.org is partnering with Pristine to bring an excel financial modeling online training program for you.














25 Responses to “Shift Calendar Template – FREE Download”
Hi Chandoo,
your recent postings include only Excel 2007 templates. Unfortunately the company I work at still runs Excel 2003. Is it possible to get your awesome files in other excel version as well?
Thanks so much for your great excel stuff!
Is it possible to do this for shifts with hours instead of days? To organise a three shift day?
Thanks in advance,
Stelios
In my organization there are 45 employees i need split then into three shifts ex:A shift:14,B shift:14,C shift:14 and week off:3 kindly help me on this.
@Masthan
You need to understand what rules your company has for the various shifts / roster combinations
Chandoo, I once did a shift control spreadsheet for my team. I put one person in each line, the columns were the days. I put a shift code in each cell indicating in which shift that person should work, or if the person were out that day. I have two codes for being out. One is for vacations and one is to compensate days worked in weekends. This way I was able to count how many persons I have in each shift, how many were on vacations and how many were out compensating (that's the term we use here) weekend worked hours.
Later I included the possibility of a person be in two lines one for normal hours other for overtime. This is mainly used for planning purposes. If you would like I can send you an example. The only problem of this spreadsheet is that we don't have a person view, only this consolidated view.
Hi George, I would like to have a copy of your spreadsheet if you can share it.
Thanks in advance, Chuck
Hi Chandoo,
Where is the code located ? is it VBA ? If so , how do you hide it ? Or it is .NET ?
Thx
@Idan
.
No VBA or code, it is all done with Mirrors.
Only Joking,
.
But there is no VBA or code,
It is all done with Named Formulas and Lookups.
Have alook at the cells in the calander area and Named Formulas in the Formulas, Name Manager Tab.
How can i calculate between two or more different workbooks? Please, reply me as early as possible.
@Anand
Open the workbooks you want to link to
Start a formula = and click and change between workbooks as required.
You can use the View, Switch window menu to change workbooks mid formula
The format for using workbooks is
=[Workbook.xlsm]Sheet1!$A$1
or
=SUM('[Book2.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$D$10)
etc
Hi Chandoo,
I am working with a call centre wherein i ned to update at the month end 20 to 30 employees login hours which are defict to track it at the month end is very difficult is there any template which can be made to track that why on a particular day a guy who needs to be on calls was why not on calls.
Thank you so much Chandoo. This is really helping me. As usual, you rock.
What's FortyTwoDays and Calendar in Name manager?
Both are unused and FortyTwoDays doesn't make any sense.
I have a SQL db that contains records of events scheduled/completed on a particular date. Can this method ous building a calendar be used to display those events on the respective day?
Positively awesome!
I'm attempting to help a friend create a schedule for adult classes - and of course its not"paid help". Here is the scenario:
20 classes, instructor, room#, student class size, start date, number of class days (need to subtract weekends)
class
instructor
room
students
start
#days
PATH
karen
201
21
01/01/13
11
BILLING
jane
401
15
01/12/13
13
MEDISOFT
mike
301
11
01/25/13
9
he'd like to see these classes show up in different colors within the same month's calendar chart. He can draw it, but I'd like to see it done automatically through data, and I just can't visualize it, but I KNOW this will work - can you help?
Jan 🙂
Dear chandoo,
Try many way to download still can't access. Any way we want to try out 3 shifts with 3 guys in a group .eg Group A Morn, Group B Night and Group C Rest. And every each group must work on sunday to take turns. In fact we are security teams so that's why sunday is required to work. Pls guide and show how to put in the working calendar. Thank you in advance.
I've been trying to copy and/or recreate this to use in a workbook I'm doing for the transportation department I'm working for. I need to have the calendar on the first sheet in my document (it has graph's from data on another sheet). I'm trying to use it to track (with the conditional formatting) accidents and injuries. I've redone the conditional formatting to do 4 different accident types (no injury, near miss, OSHA recordable injury and work loss injury), but when I enter the formula's you have in the calendar portion where it says "DateOfFirst-FirstWeekDay" I can't figure out how you did that. Are you able to help?
I would like to use Excel to solve the following problem for a community work. I want to create a Driver schedule for a given month from a pool of volunteers for a community service. Each of these volunteers can drive only on specific days in a week. I would like to populate the driving schedule for each weekday with primary, secondary and tertiary drivers in a random fashion so that I do not overburden one person. I would greatly any help you can provide.
Hi chandoo,
Thanks for your valuable effort for create this template and let me know how to add multiple employees in the the Roaster.
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful. Could you please let me know how i can use the same for n number of resources who work 24/7, considering their leaves and holidays?
Thanks,
Savitha
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful to all. Could you please let me know how i can use the same if I want to add for some more shifts, since the color is not getting change if I add more shifts like 4,5 etc.,
Thanks,
Murali
nice post
How can I change the date to 2017 under Shift Data worksheet.
solution 1:
mydata=B2:C16
stoplist=E2:E8
=LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16, F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*F))
=LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16,RH,N(B2:B16=B2), F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),TOT,SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*RH*F),SUM(SMR*RH)-SUM(SMR* RH*F))
ALTERNATE SOLUTION
=SUM(C2:C16)-SUM(FILTER(C2:C16,ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))))
=SUM((B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16))-SUM((ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))*(B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16)))
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
#"Replaced Value" = Table.ReplaceValue(Source,null,";",Replacer.ReplaceValue,{"Column1"}),
#"Transposed Table" = Table.Transpose(#"Replaced Value"),
#"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Transposed Table",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"}),
#"Merged Columns" = Table.CombineColumns(#"Removed Other Columns",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"},Combiner.CombineTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.None),"Merged"),
#"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Table.TransformColumns(#"Merged Columns", {{"Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter(";", QuoteStyle.Csv), let itemType = (type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true] in type {itemType}}}), "Merged"),
#"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter", {{"Merged", each "|" & _, type text}}),
#"Replaced Value1" = Table.ReplaceValue(#"Added Prefix","||","|",Replacer.ReplaceText,{"Merged"}),
#"Split Column by Delimiter1" = Table.SplitColumn(#"Replaced Value1", "Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.Csv), {"Merged.1", "Merged.2", "Merged.3", "Merged.4", "Merged.5", "Merged.6", "Merged.7", "Merged.8"}),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter1",{"Merged.1"}),
#"Removed Duplicates" = Table.Distinct(#"Removed Columns")
in
#"Removed Duplicates"