Tracking prices is easy with a price book in a spreadsheet or on a PDA. Read on to see learn to set up an electronic price book in a spreadsheet or on a PDA.
This is the last article in the Creating a Price Book series, which includes:
- How to Set Up a Price Book
- Create Price Book Pages by Hand or with Online Printables
- Price Books - Word Processsed - Make Forms with Word Processing Software
- This article.
Once you understand how to set up a price book, you can consider using an electronic price book.
- Spreadsheets will do unit pricing calculations for you and because they already have rows and columns in place they make perfect sense for a price book.
- PDAs, commonly known as Palms, Pocket PC's or Blackberries, have options for price books with list or shopping programs available for the devices. Using a price book on a PDA makes comparing prices while shopping especially easy.
- Use a PDA and your computer together and you have the ease of setting up or editing a price book on a computer while using the price book on a PDA. Do this by using PDA software that is accompanied by a desktop application, or PDA spreadsheet software that synchronizes with the spreadsheet on your computer.
Spreadsheet Set Up for Price Books
Price books can easily be set up in a spreadsheet such as Excel, but you will need to record prices you find while in stores and enter them later into the spreadsheet at home then after updating print out the spreadsheet to take along with you when shopping. If you have a PDA, you can update prices while shopping and synchronize with the computer at home, as discussed later in this article. The advantage of using a spreadsheet is the ability to set up a formula to calculate unit pricing automatically.
Enter the following column titles in the top cell of each column:
- Column A: Date
- Column B: Store
- Column C: Item/Brand
- Column D: Size
- Column E: Units
- Column F: Price
- Column G: Unit Price
- Column H: Notes
For each item, enter a formula to calculate the cost per unit in the Unit Price cell. The formula is Price/Size, or =F3/D3 and if Price is in column F and Size is in column D and the data is in row 3.
Free Spreadsheet Template for Price Books
The web site It's Your Money offers quite a few good free personal finance spreadsheet templates, including the Price Book Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet template calculates both price per weight and price per bottle, can, box, etc. A sample page is included along with download and print instructions.
Price Books for PDAs
If you own a PDA such as a Blackberry, Palm or Pocket PC/Win Mobile, you can create your price book with software like HandyShopper, Splash Shopper or list software. This gives you the convenience of integrating a price book with your grocery or other shopping lists on your PDA. HandyShopper, Splash Shopper and other PDA shopping list software provide a price column for each item on your editable lists, which are saved and reused.
Spreadsheet/PDA Combination
Most PDAs come equipped with software that will synchronize with desktop spreadsheet software, such as Excel Mobile or Documents to Go. This software on your PDA lets you create a price book spreadsheet on your computer and avoid printing it to refer to in stores by synchronizing it with your PDA. Then with the price book spreadsheet on your PDA, you can add prices to the PDA spreadsheet while shopping and update the data on your computer later when you synchronize your PDA.
Use Free Spreadsheet Templates to Set Up a Budget
Spreadsheet Calculation Primer
Discuss setting up a price book in the Personal Budgeting Forum.
