Which excel sheet are you using? The one I am familiar with named "Tracking.xls" just allows you to enter the character or opponent name in column A and it will populate it across the first row to show when events happen. I use a heavily modified open office version that more or less does the same thing. As far as I know, all versions I have seen require you to enter the character name/designation only as a way to keep track of who is doing what. They also require you to enter the initiative value(or in my ods case, init roll and modifiers), select the action, then step through initiative with the next button.
