Welcome to the first of my RMOHC PRACTICAL Articles here in the RMOHC.com Accounting Empowerment Blog. 

The goal of RMOHC is to have you feel more empowered to do your work better, using the tools you have, than when you first opened the site.

Situation: 

The site says, “Download data” and you do.  You see the download notification at the bottom LH side of your monitor and your data is waiting there.

You open the download, and up pops a new tab on what appears to be a spreadsheet so that you can extract data and work on your project.  You label that tab, “TAB 1”

Done!  Great work!  Tab 1 has the original information.  You extract data and dump it into a new tab and call it, Tab 2.  You finish your work and time to close it up.  The last thing you check is something on Tab 1, the original information.You save it cruising through all the pop-up closing messages (notifications/warnings) and close it.  This is what you do everyday. 

The next day, you want to review your work, and when you open it, you only have one tab of information, Tab1.  Tab 2 is missing.  All your work, and the whole Tab 2 is missing!!  What happened??

You were working on a .CSV file

You saved what looked like an Excel file as a MicroSoft_Excel_CSV file.  Easy to miss.

It is also easy to miss the warning message that comes up:

We are all experienced with spreadsheets and have begun to ignore messages when we close files.  [“Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!”]

You clicked “OK” thinking you were saving the whole spreadsheet, and you were only saving the active sheet, again, the sheet you saw on the screen.  Let’s look at what .CSV files are and what to do with them:

WHAT IS A . CSV FILE?

What is it:
A text file

Each Line = 1 record

Each Record = 1 or more fields, SEPARATED BY COMMAS
                      hence: Comma Separated Value (CSV)

Each line will have the same number of fields:

Line 1:  Data1, data2, bigger data3, text, number
Line 2:  Data1, data2, bigger data3, text, number
Line 3:  Data1, data2, bigger data3, text, number

            And it looks like this (and that looks A LOT like a spreadsheet!!):

Data Type = Tabular, i.e. Numbers and Text (resembles a single page spreadsheet)

Default Download Appication = Your spreadsheet application (for me it is MSExcel)

Format = Plain Text (this allowed files to be downloaded anywhere, on any computer)

What is Saved = .CSV files will save only the active page, the page you see on the screen

 What is the difference? 
.CSV – file can only be saved as one page or tab, the active page, the page you see
.XLSX – The file from Excel that gives you multiple page/tab capabilities

PREVENTION:

1. IDENTIFY THE FILE TYPE:  When you download a data file, look to see if it is a .CSV file or a spreadsheet file, .XLSX or something akin to Excel.     
1a. XLSX File? – Begin working and save as you always do.
1b. CSV File? – Continue to #2

2. IMMEDIATELY SAVE THE FILE AS AN EXCEL SHEET:  As a matter of best practices,

    if you see a file is a .CSV file, do not do any work on the sheet and save it first in its

    original form as an .XLSX type file

    File name:   Put the file name [Look for File Naming post]
    Save as type: Choose “Excel Workbooks (*.xlsx)”

You don’t have to save the original .CSV file if you prefer not to.  You will find it is in your download file on the (C:\downloads) so that you can always find it there, if necessary.

Then begin work, extract data, link tabs, etc., as you normally would.

When it is time to close the file, just keep an eye on the extension (the .XXX at the end of the file name) and verify it does not read:  .CSV

Simple Steps:

1. Download
2. Save download as an .XLSX file
3. Work as usual
4. Save the work keeping an eye on the extension (.XLSX)
5. Breathe…

Look for more articles here, or teasers for articles on LinkedIn.

If there is a topic you would like me to discuss, email me at info@rmohc.com.