How to organize and track your expenses using Excel | Learn at Microsoft Create (2024)

FAQs

How to create an expense tracker in Excel? ›

To access the expense tracker template, go to File > New > Templates > Tracking > Expenses. The expense tracker template will open in a new workbook. To begin tracking your expenses, simply enter your transactions into the appropriate categories. You can add as many or as few categories as you like.

In an Excel template, you can create new sheets for each of these major categories, then break them down to specific expenses. For example, create a new sheet, name it Housing, and then dedicate a column to the expenses that fall under this category (monthly mortgage payments, anticipated home repairs, etc.).

Microsoft Excel has lots of free, customizable budget templates available to pick from, so you're certain to find one that works for you. Let's open the Excel expense template that I got from the Microsoft Create and dive into a few ways to customize it for my small business.

To enter your expenses in your Excel budgeting template, go to the "Expenses" sheet. Here, you'll see a table with categories such as "Rent/Mortgage," "Utilities," "Food," and so on. Again, just enter the appropriate amount for each category and add new expenses as needed.

You can categorize expenses in Excel by setting up categories in one column and using functions like “VLOOKUP” or “INDEX” and “MATCH” to automatically assign transactions to these categories based on keywords or other criteria within your transaction data.

How to maintain daily tracker in Excel? ›

Tracking daily and monthly tasks in Excel

Click Insert > Sheet > Blank Sheet to add a new worksheet. Then give each row and column a header label, and use the formatting tools to design your own daily or monthly task tracker.

Whether it is family-based planning for a weekly, monthly or yearly calendar or a personal appointment daily planner or a schedule for managing bill payments, homework, favorite sports team's games, and many more, excel can make it easy to compile, filter, search, organize and simplify large amounts of data.

Microsoft Excel has lots of free, customizable budget templates available to pick from, so you're certain to find one that works for you. Let's open the Excel expense template that I got from the Microsoft Create and dive into a few ways to customize it for my small business.

Select the cell directly beneath the "Total Expenses" label. Type "=SUM(" into the empty cell. Select the first entry in your "Expenses" column, press and hold the "Shift" key, select the last expense item in the same column, then press the "Enter" key to calculate your total expenses.