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Keeping track of key data points can be tedious—especially when working with complex Excel workbooks containing multiple worksheets. But thanks to Excel’s Watch Window, that’s no longer an issue.
What Is Excel’s Watch Window, and When Should You Use It?
Excel’s Watch Window allows you to monitor the values of specific cells on a worksheet without having to navigate back and forth between different parts of your workbook.
Imagine you’re building a three-statement financial model with a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. The balance sheet would be the basis for many items on the cash flow statement.
Instead of constantly switching to the cash flow sheet to see how changes in your balance sheet (e.g., adjusting accounts receivable or debt) are affecting cash flows, you may add the relevant cash flow cell (e.g., net cash flow) to the Watch Window. This way, you can monitor the changes to your net cash flow while adjusting your balance sheet without needing to navigate between sheets.
How to Access and Use Excel’s Watch Window
Since the Watch Window is built into Microsoft Excel, you don’t need any special steps to activate it. Simply load your workbook and navigate toFormulas>Watch Window.
Once the Watch Window is active, you only have to add cells that you’d like to monitor. Doing this is also pretty straightforward. With the Watch Window active, just navigate to the cell(s) you’d like to monitor and highlight it.
Once you’ve highlighted the cells, clickAdd Watchin the Watch Window pane. This will launch a dialog box where you’re to confirm your selection.
ClickAdd, and the selected cells will now appear in the Watch Window.
As you continue working, you can watch the values of your selected cells automatically update in the Watch Window. You’ll find information like the workbook name, sheet name,cell reference or address, and the formula being carried out in each of your monitored cells.
The Watch Window pane is fully adjustable. You can resize the window by hovering around its edges and dragging the extension arrow once it appears.
you’re able to also reposition the window anywhere you like so it stays in view without obstructing your main work. I like to dock mine to the bottom of my screen, but you can dock yours to the left, right, or top of your screen—whatever helps you maintain an organized screen.
If you no longer need to track certain cells, you can easily remove them by selecting the cell(s) you wish to remove. ClickDelete Watch, and they’ll be removed from the list.
If you’d rather close the Watch Window entirely, simply click theXin the top right corner of the pane. This will hide the pane, but you can always re-enable it later, and your key data points will pop up again.
When to Use Excel’s Watch Window
The real beauty of the Watch Window is its ability to track cells from different locations—whether they’re on the same sheet or spread across different sheets in a workbook. In the case of the three-statement financial model above, I can also add cells from the income statement (e.g., interest under operating income).
This way, I can keep making changes to my balance sheet and simultaneously monitor how the changes affect both the income statement and the cash flow statement in real-time, all without leaving the balance sheet.
Even when I open another workbook, the Watch Window remains ever-present and helpful. If I’m working on a valuation model or preparing a merger analysis in a separate workbook, I’d still need to reference things like the EBITDA, cash flow, or shareholder equity from my three-statement financial model.
Whether you’re working with a complex Excel sheet, a workbook containingmultiple interconnected sheets pulling data from one another, or different related workbooks, you can use the Watch Window to keep track of key data without interrupting your workflow, which will save you time and help you avoid errors.
