excel template/workbook

I am trying to create a template for balancing reports .
The users will enter data and use the save as function so as to not save
over my template . A couple things I'd like to accomplish but being an excel
novice I'm unsure how and if it's possible .
For example -

although the users will being using the save as function to save as a
workbook and not making changes to the actual template , is there still a way
to have the data update a database each time ?

Also I have included cells in my template for previous amounts that can be
used as a comparison for the new data being entered . Being that this
previous info will change everytime balancing is performed , is there still a
way to autoupdate the previous info without having to copy and paste ?

I would appreciate any help I can get on these issues .

Thank YOu

if you save your template as a true template ie an xlt file then double
clicking the shortcut will always open a duplicate ie it would open
account.xlt as account1.xls
If you have your cells linked to some data in another workbook you will be
asked if you want to update the data,If you link to some "original" data
cells in the same work book it will update the "copied" data every time the
original data is changed
--
paul
remove nospam for email addy!



"trying@excel" wrote:

> I am trying to create a template for balancing reports .
> The users will enter data and use the save as function so as to not save
> over my template . A couple things I'd like to accomplish but being an excel
> novice I'm unsure how and if it's possible .
> For example -
>
> although the users will being using the save as function to save as a
> workbook and not making changes to the actual template , is there still a way
> to have the data update a database each time ?
>
> Also I have included cells in my template for previous amounts that can be
> used as a comparison for the new data being entered . Being that this
> previous info will change everytime balancing is performed , is there still a
> way to autoupdate the previous info without having to copy and paste ?
>
> I would appreciate any help I can get on these issues .
>
> Thank YOu