Do I Need To Keep A Check Register
Free Excel Check / Expense Register Spreadsheet
| Toll: | Gratuitous! |
| File Blazon: | Excel Spreadsheet Template (.xlt); OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods) |
| File Size: | ~169kb (.null) // ~598kb (.xlt) |
| Concluding Update: | 2009-04-12 |
| Current Version: | iv.5 |
| Macros: | None. |
Looking for an easy-to-use, costless check register spreadsheet? You've plant the right place!
My free Check Register spreadsheet has get awfully popular, as you lot might imagine. The overnice affair is that I know all my users (like yous, hopefully) have taken the fourth dimension to read my Disclaimer.
At that place. At present that that'southward out of the mode, grab your re-create of the Check Register Spreadsheet ...
...and keep reading to run into everything information technology tin practice for you!
Introduction
Hither's the affair: I beloved Quicken as much as the next guy, merely information technology's not for everyone. Information technology takes a lot of time to larn; information technology isn't the most problems-gratuitous piece of software ever churned out; and information technology tin be pricey and even frustrating. The elementary fact is that not everyone needs Quicken or Money.
If you're just beginning your journey toward Money Smarts, so all you really need to get started is a elementary check-register spreadsheet. You lot need something that tin can help you rail your banking company- and credit-bill of fare balances, correct? And maybe prove you where your money's going with the aid of spending categories.
I absolutely believe in categorizing one's spending. That, to my heed, is probably the single biggest benefit of Quicken and Money — they let you see exactly where your money is going. As I looked around the internet, I institute exactly ZERO free check-register spreadsheets that allow a way to categorize one's money flow. One site, in fact, suggests that it can't exist washed with Excel — that you'd require Quicken or Money to group your spending into customizable categories.
That would be true ... except for the fact that it's simulated.
Click this image to get a quick wait at my complimentary Check Register:
Yes, believe it. This spreadsheet does offering spending categories. Even better, they're customizable. Then use them. See where your coin's going. You lot might be surprised.
One more thing: Simply because I call information technology a "checkbook register" doesn't mean that that's all it tin practise. A small-biz possessor might use information technology to help track a receivables/payables account. And since the categories are entirely customizable, they could prove very useful for this sort of business-business relationship tracking, too. You could utilize information technology to track a credit-card business relationship, or an auto-loan business relationship, or pretty much any business relationship where there are inflows and/or outflows. (Which means pretty much any account.)
Interested in learning more? Just read on! (This isn't your boilerplate checkbook register; there are some things you need to know to get the most out of it.)
Spreadsheet Requires Excel 97 or After
This isn't a stand-alone program. It'southward an Excel spreadsheet, which means it requires that you have Microsoft Excel installed on your reckoner for it to operate. Further, I've only tried it on Excel 97 and later versions — so it might work on earlier versions of Excel, simply I tin't guarantee it.
As far as operating system requirements, it should piece of work on Windows 98 and afterwards versions.
OpenOffice Users: Yup, it'll work with OpenOffice! (Although I oasis't tried the Recurring Transactions Log on it yet.)
Mac Users: It should work fine on Macs. But since I don't accept ready admission to ane, I can't prove information technology.
What Can This Thing Do?
Well, it can exercise all the nasty math required to keep a running balance in your account, of course. That'southward kid'due south play. Aside from that, information technology tin can:
- Monitor your spending with upward to 200 user-created spending categories — all selectable from a drop-downwards menu, if you lot so choose.
- Allow up to 15 transaction types (bank check, ATM, ETF, etc.), all customizable past the user. And so it works great equally a register for credit-card and loan accounts too!
- Take advantage of Excel's AutoFilter (if applicable) for some heavy-duty, categorized-spending analysis!
And the all-time office of all: You tin get rid of your paper checkbook registers in one case and for all. (They brand spiffy coloring pads for three-year-olds, by the way. Keeps 'em entertained for at least 10 to 20 minutes.)
Not Just for Checking Accounts
While I put this spreadsheet together with the idea that information technology could function as a elementary check register, the truth is that it will probably work every bit a register for most any type of basic bank account: savings, loan, credit card, or whatever. You could even utilize it to rails your cash spending. Merely open a new workbook (spreadsheet file) for each account that you wish to runway.
Basically, if the account y'all're dealing with uses credits and debits, or deposits and withdrawals (which is pretty much every account known to man), then this spreadsheet could probably be used to track it. In the case of an investment account or something similar, yous'd just have to rail it at a very simplistic level. (Meaning this spreadsheet won't compute fancy percentage-rate returns, or anything close to information technology.)
Credit Card Accounts: The spreadsheet should work fabulously for tracking credit-card accounts. Your purchases would exist entered as debits, equally would interest charges and other fees. Payments would be entered equally credits.
Loan Accounts: Yep, it should be rails these just fine, besides. Y'all would enter involvement charges and such as debits. Enter your loan payments as credits.
If you're looking to rails "what comes in" and "what goes out" on your account, along with categorizing your transactions and letting the spreadsheet do the yucky math, then this spreadsheet is for you.
If I don't take quick access to Excel and the Check Register, how am I supposed to remember how much I spent, and what I spent it on?
Information technology's quite piece of cake: Save your receipts in your wallet or purse.
Really. I've been doing this for years! I tuck all my receipts into my wallet, and my wife stores hers in her purse. And then, every few days, I sit and log all our expenditures. (For a little more detail, read my blog mail entitled Cash Flow in a Box.)
Once yous get into the habit, it'due south a snap.
Customize the Check Annals Spreadsheet
Obviously, the Transaction Types and Categories are customizable right out of the box. Wouldn't brand much sense otherwise, would information technology?
Beyond that, if you know your style around Excel, and then experience free to customize the Check Annals spreadsheet as you like. Before yous do, though, exist sure to make a backup copy of the spreadsheet!
Some changes — especially calculation/deleting rows and columns — can wreak havoc on formulas that the spreadsheet uses to function!
The spreadsheet is protected (no password, though), so if you lot desire to make changes to locked cells, you'll have to unprotect the worksheet(s) you wish to change. On Excel's menubar, select:
TOOLS → PROTECTION → UNPROTECT SHEET
You should at present be able to customize the spreadsheet however yous similar.
Create Your Own Transaction Types
- Eolith
- Check (Paid past check)
- CKCD (Checkcard / debit card)
- Online (Online use of debit card)
- TXFR (Transfer to/from another business relationship)
- EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer)
- ATM (Withdrawal from ATM)
And there could fifty-fifty be more. Equally another example, if y'all were logging transactions that related to a credit-card account, you might use:
- Charge (Normal credit-card buy)
- BTXFR (Residue transfer)
- Online (Online purchase or transaction)
- C-Check (Convenience bank check)
You don't have to enter a Transaction Type with every transaction, of course. But I've found that there are times when knowing how a transaction took place can be quite helpful.
Create Your Own Transaction Categories
I'm. Not. Exaggerating.
Why is it so important? Considering until you know what y'all're spending your coin on now, y'all accept zero constructive groundwork for making spending changes in the future.
Think well-nigh it this way: Let'due south say you know that your last iii trips to Wal-Mart cost y'all a total of $450. You could effigy that out easily enough from your newspaper checkbook register, or even from your bank statement, if you'd used a debit or credit menu.
Merely what did that $450 go you? $450 worth of groceries?
Or $375 worth of groceries, plus $75 worth of other necessary household consummables?
Or $300 worth of groceries, plus $150 worth of stuff that you lot and your kids actually didn't need?
Telling yourself, for example, that "We really have to cut downwards our spending at Wal-Mart," is ane thing. But how practise you make a workable programme to pull that off when all you really know is that you lot tend to spend a bunch of money at Wal-Mart?
The answer: You lot can't.
On the other manus, you certainly can make changes when you lot know what really comprises your Wal-Mart spending. You know where to make spending changes when you know how much you've been spending on "Groceries," or "Household Consummables," or "Kid - Toys."
In any instance, my Check Register spreadsheet allows yous to create and enter upwardly to 200 of your own spending categories. You so categorize each transaction as y'all enter it.
You lot'll practice this in your Check Annals workbook past clicking the "Categories" tab and inbound your categories in the space provided. You lot don't need to come up up with a hundred of them right when you get started — in fact, I'd wholeheartedly advise against that. Instead, keep this as uncomplicated equally possible. Start with the basics. More workable and meaningful categories will occur to you, over time, every bit you enter more and more than transactions.
When you have a transaction that needs a new category, just click over to your "Categories" worksheet and add it to the end of your current batch. Then sort your category list. It'll now exist available from the driblet-down box in your Register's Category column. (See the screenshot at the starting time of this section.)
Memory fading? Utilize the Recurring Transactions Log!
My latest addition to the Cheque Register spreadsheet is the Recurring Transactions Log. It looks like so:
List all your periodic, recurring bills in the Recurring Transaction Log, and your days of "forgetting what bills are due when" are over.
NOTE: The spreadsheet won't automatically enter your recurring transactions — at least, I'm not enough of an Excel Master Ninja Guru to make it do that. But what the Recurring Transaction Log volition exercise is prove you which transactions are due either today or tomorrow. For an example, notice the transaction with the differing background colors in the screenshot above. That's the spreadsheet telling yous which ones might need attention.
Yeah, You Tin can Practice Separate-Category Transactions
(A Bit Imperfectly)
In a previous department, nosotros talked about having three Wal-Mart visits that tallied a full of $450. Let's say that the terminal of those three visits saw us spend $120. Because we're dutiful spending categorizers, we used our free Receipt Splitter spreadsheet to find that the $120 spent at Wal-Mart was comprised thusly:
Groceries: $90
Household Items: $xx
Pet Items: $10
And because we want our spreadsheet to reflect our "spending reality" and show where our money is really going, that's the mode we should enter the Wal-Mart transaction. One transaction, split into 3 categories. But how to do this?
I'll be completely honest: This is where Excel simply cannot keep up with Quicken and Money and programs of that ilk. They're database-oriented, which means they're built precisely for this sort of affair. Nevertheless, we Excel-users do take a workaround, clumsy though it may be. We simply enter our $120 Wal-Mart trip as 3 separate transactions, each with its right category. Click the following image for an enlarged visual:
Observe how each part of the split has the same Item #. In this case, it was a debit carte du jour purchase, so I arbitrarily assigned it Item #1234. This, plus the note I added to the MEMO of each transaction telling me that information technology was part of a dissever for my ITEM #1234, should keep me lined-out when it'south time to reconcile my business relationship.
By doing this, when it comes time to reconcile the account, I'll remember that those three items were all just part of one transaction — not three truly separate transactions. In my bank argument, of course, I'd just see a single $120 debit-carte transaction from Wal-Mart. But considering I know the value of categorized spending, in my register, I split that $120 expense into 3 separate entries totalling $120 — 1 for each spending category.
And that'south how I handle dissever-category transactions.
Tabulate Your Spending Categories with Excel AutoFilter
Correct here is where all our work with spending categories pays off.
Excel users know how powerful its sorting capabilities are. With SORT, nosotros can see, for example, exactly how much we spent last month on groceries. First, nosotros'd unprotect the sheet:
TOOLS → PROTECTION → UNPROTECT Sheet
And then we'd select all information (from columns B to J) the engagement range we wish to see — in this case, the month of January:
Then we'll SORT the selected data (Data → SORT) ...
... as shown here. Nosotros wish to sort by Category, so we select Column F in the "Sort by" dialog box:
Then nosotros'd click the OK push, and go something like the post-obit (click to overstate). Nosotros utilize our cursor to select only those "Grocery" category entries from January, and Excel's AutoSum feature tallies the three entries in the bottom correct corner of the screen:
In this case, nosotros spent a whopping $148.89 on groceries in January. To get our data dorsum to the fashion information technology was, we would just click the "SORT BY DATE" push.
Merely There's An Even Better Way ... AutoFilter!
Or we could do it the easy mode. Excel AutoFilter (if your version has it) comes to the rescue!
Just select AutoFilter from the Data drop-down, similar then:
Yous'll then meet drib-down boxes at each column heading, like this:
Click the drib-down icon next to the Category heading, and since we desire to run across our grocery spending, we select "Grocery" from the drib-down options:
And similar magic, Excel filters out all data except that which has as its category "Grocery." Click the image to enlarge:
Utilise your cursor to select the Grocery expenditures from January, and Excel's AutoSum will tally it for y'all in the lower right side of the screen, just like information technology did for the SORT method above. How easy was that?
To get your data dorsum to the way it was — with all of it showing — but head dorsum to the menubar and select DATA → FILTER → AUTOFILTER and unclick AutoFilter.
Notation: If you've scrolled downwards your spreadsheet at all, thus hiding data backside the locked blue rows (the last of which is Row vii), then this hidden data will not show up when Excel does its AutoFiltering thing. I oftentimes use this "characteristic" to pre-eliminate any data that's earlier than I wish to analyze. For example, if I had a twelvemonth's worth of transactions in my register, and I but wanted to come across my Grocery spending from June, then I could curl downward so that all data from before June would be hidden behind the locked rows at the height of the screen. AutoFilter would then ignore the hidden data.
Feel gratuitous to play effectually with AutoFilter to see all the great stuff it can do!
Bank check Out My Other (Better!) Check Register Spreadsheet
In one case you've tried out my gratuitous version, please consider upgrading to my Check Register w/Sorting Macros and Reconcile. It's pretty darn cool, actually. And clay cheap.
Slap-up Features of the Pay Version
The pay version adds a few niceties to the free version — nothing earth-shattering, I suppose, but worthwhile to users similar me who prefer to allow Excel do as much of the grunt work as possible.
- Adds one-click sorting to your transaction Types, Categories, and register transactions (requires macros enabled).
- Adds a Category Written report worksheet which allows you to see your categorized spending and earning in whatsoever given time menstruation.
- Adds reconciliation ability, so you tin verify your spreadsheet transactions against those on your bank statement.
- Reconciliation grade is hideable/viewable with toggle push button (requires macros enabled).
- Hyperlink buttons allow you to easily switch betwixt worksheets without having to use Excel'south bottom-of-the-screen worksheet tabs.
- Plus it's dirt inexpensive and a super-like shooting fish in a barrel way to support It's Your Coin!
Oh aye — it also carries a full threescore-24-hour interval, Money-Dorsum Guarantee.
Any other Bank check Registers?
If yous're one of those folks who follows the "envelopes" method of budgeting, you'll want to check out my Envelopes Bank check Annals. It's costless, too, but it works on a somewhat different level than this one.
Also, if y'all're interested in learning how to make your own check annals in Excel, read my tutorial entitled "How to Make an Excel Check Annals."
Questions and Comments? Contact Me!
Got a question or issue? Don't hesitate — drop me a line. I'll become back to you as soon as possible!
Source: https://mdmproofing.com/iym/products/free-check-register/
Posted by: viguecarolve.blogspot.com
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