Spreadsheet cleanup · a worked example

The same spreadsheet, before and after.

Synthetic example — a composite of common problems, not a client file.

A twelve-row job log the way these sheets actually arrive — three date formats, one job spelled four ways, a total typed by hand — and the same log after cleanup. Every problem is marked, every fix explained.

See the before Email about your spreadsheet

As it arrived

Before

One month of a lawn-care job log. It works — barely — because the person who built it remembers what everything means. Each numbered marker is a problem, explained under the cleaned version below.

march jobs FINAL v3 (1).xlsx — as received
1 Date problem 1 Customer Job Amount Unlabeled column problem 6
2 3/2KowalskiMow120
3 3/3DiMarcomow+edge problem 2160
4 3/5Herreraspring cleanup1.2k problem 3
5 3/7Kowalskimowing problem 2120
6 March 9th problem 1Bright Path HOAMulch install$1,200.00 problem 3
7 March 9 problem 4BP HOA problem 8mulch1200
8 2026-03-12 problem 1NowakMOW problem 2120x
9 3/14DiMarcomow+edge160
10 3/16Alvarezhedge trim260 - incl. haul away problem 5
11 3/19KowalskiMow120
12 3/21Herreramow+edge160x
13 3/24Bright Path HOAcleanup850
14 TOTAL5210 problem 7

Twelve entries as typed, eight marked problems. Amounts hugging the left edge of the cell are ones the spreadsheet is treating as text, not numbers — they silently drop out of any sum.

Same data, cleaned

After

Nothing invented, nothing thrown away — the same eleven real jobs. One date format, one name per job type, real numbers, one row per job, and a total that is a formula instead of a guess.

Job Log — 2026-03 (cleaned).xlsx — returned
1 Date Customer Job type Amount Paid Notes
2 2026-03-02KowalskiMow$120Yes
3 2026-03-03DiMarcoMow + edge$160Yes
4 2026-03-05HerreraSpring cleanup$1,200Yes
5 2026-03-07KowalskiMow$120Yes
6 2026-03-09Bright Path HOAMulch install$1,200YesWas entered twice; kept once
7 2026-03-12NowakMow$120No
8 2026-03-14DiMarcoMow + edge$160Yes
9 2026-03-16AlvarezHedge trim$260YesIncludes haul-away
10 2026-03-19KowalskiMow$120Yes
11 2026-03-21HerreraMow + edge$160No
12 2026-03-24Bright Path HOASpring cleanup$850Yes
13 Total — computed, not typed $4,470 =SUM(D2:D12)

Typed at the bottom before

$5,210

The hand-typed total — $460 short of its own rows.

What the rows sum to as written

$5,670

Duplicate included, “1.2k” read as $1,200.

What the month was really worth

$4,470

Duplicate row removed — $5,670 minus the $1,200 entered twice.

What changed, and why it matters

  1. One date format. 3/2, “March 9th,” and 2026-03-12 lived in one column — most with no year at all. Now every date is 2026-03-02 style, so the log finally sorts and filters by date.
  2. One name per job type. Mow work was spelled four ways — Mow, mowing, MOW with a trailing space, mow+edge — so any count by job type saw four services. Now there are two real ones: Mow, and Mow + edge.
  3. Real numbers. “$1,200.00” and “1.2k” were text, and text silently drops out of a sum. Every amount is now an actual number the spreadsheet can add.
  4. The duplicate is gone. The March 9 mulch job was entered twice, formatted just differently enough to slip past a glance — removing it took $1,200 of phantom revenue out of the month.
  5. Notes moved out of number cells. “260 - incl. haul away” turned the whole cell into text. Now: $260 in Amount, “Includes haul-away” in Notes.
  6. The mystery column has a name. A blank, unlabeled column carried two stray x’s that meant “not paid yet” — knowledge that lived in one person’s head. It is now a Paid column that says No.
  7. The total is a formula. The hand-typed total was $460 off — it read $5,210 against rows that sum to $5,670 as written. Now =SUM(D2:D12) returns $4,470 and moves whenever a row does.
  8. One name per customer. “Bright Path HOA” and “BP HOA” were the same customer under two names, which helped hide the duplicate. One name now, so grouping by customer tells the truth.

The service

Have a sheet like this?

Nobody builds a messy spreadsheet on purpose — they accrete, one busy week at a time. Spreadsheet cleanup means I take your working-but-messy file and return it accurate, organized, and easy to maintain: one format per column, real numbers, computed totals, and a layout the next person can actually use.

$500–$2,000

Fixed price, quoted before work begins — typically a few days.

Email about a cleanup See all the tools

The job log above is a synthetic example — a composite of problems that show up again and again in real job logs, assembled for illustration. It is not a client’s file, and every name and number in it is invented.