Further developments are introduced in the theory of finite-size errors in quantum many-body simulations of extended systems using periodic boundary conditions. We show that our recently introduced model periodic Coulomb interaction [A. J. Williamson et al., Phys. Rev. B 55, R4851 (1997)] can be applied consistently to all Coulomb interactions in the system. The model periodic Coulomb interaction greatly reduces the finite-size errors in quantum many-body simulations. We illustrate the practical application of our techniques with Hartree-Fock and variational and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations for ground- and excited-state calculations. We demonstrate that the finite-size effects in electron promotion and electron addition/subtraction excitation energy calculations are very similar. [S0163-1829(99)07303-8].