Import your firm's preferred Excel formats, save templates for repeated use, and maintain consistency across your financial models

Build Faster with Custom Templates in Shortcut

Every financial institution has its own modeling standards. Color schemes, formatting conventions, calculation methodologies—these aren't just preferences, they're firm-wide requirements that ensure consistency and auditability.

Shortcut respects your existing workflows. Import your company's templates, and Shortcut builds on top of your preferred format rather than forcing you to adapt to a new structure.

How Template Import Works

💻 Web App

Upload any Excel file as a template. Shortcut analyzes the structure, formatting, and formula logic. Save it to your template library with a descriptive name.

Next time you need that format, select it from your saved templates and prompt Shortcut to populate it with new data.

📊 Excel Plugin

Using the Excel plugin? Open your saved template directly from your file system.

The template lives in Excel just like any other .xlsx file. Start prompting immediately—Shortcut makes edits within your existing file structure.

Common Use Cases

1. Restructuring Financials for New Companies

You have a standardized P&L format your firm uses for portfolio companies. A new investment provides financial statements in their own format.

Upload your template and the new company's statements, then prompt: "Restructure these financials into our portfolio reporting template."

2. Cohort Analysis

SaaS and subscription businesses need consistent cohort tracking templates. Import your retention analysis template, upload customer data, and prompt: "Run cohort analysis for Q3 2024 using this template."

The template's complex cohort formulas stay intact while Shortcut populates the new quarter's data and calculates all derived metrics.

3. Data Transformation Dashboards

Raw data dumps from ERPs or accounting systems need transformation into executive-friendly dashboards. Create a dashboard template once with your preferred charts, KPIs, and formatting. Each month, upload the new data dump and your dashboard template.

4. Standardized Deal Models

Investment banking teams maintain standard LBO and DCF templates refined over years. Upload the template and target's financials, then prompt: "Build LBO for [Company] using our standard template."

Template + Prompt Library Power Combo

The real workflow optimization comes from combining templates with the Prompt Library. Save both your templates and the prompts you use with them.

Example saved prompt:

"Build a quarterly board deck using [Q3 Board Template]. Include variance analysis vs. budget, updated revenue projections using the attached forecast, and refresh all KPI dashboards. Apply our standard executive formatting from AI Preferences."

Now this entire workflow is one click: select template, select prompt, upload new data, run. What used to take a junior analyst two days now takes five minutes.

Maintaining Firm Standards

Templates ensure everyone on your team builds models the same way. Senior analysts create the templates encoding best practices—formula structures, error checks, scenario assumptions. Junior team members use these templates, ensuring consistency without needing years of experience.

Key Benefits

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Consistency: Every model follows the same logical structure
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Auditability: Reviewers know exactly where to look for key assumptions
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Speed: No more rebuilding common structures from memory
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Quality: Templates embed institutional knowledge and best practices

💡 Pro Tip

Teams using templates + saved prompts report 80% reduction in model-building time for recurring analyses. That's hundreds of analyst hours redirected from spreadsheet formatting to actual financial analysis.

Ready to build with templates?

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