A year late but here's my Google Sheets + Forms budget/expense tracker

[cindy222]

Update - I have added a more mobile-friendly dashboard to this setup using Google Data Studio. Check it out here.

Original Post -

Tl;dr - Sharing a copy of my Budget tracking system which uses Google Sheets + Google Forms. Sheets keeps track, runs the backend and shows me a Dashboard, and Forms lets me fill in the sheet in a much more user friendly manner. The form sits on my phone as a homescreen shortcut, so it's much more intuitive than opening up a spreadsheet to fill in my expenses.

Sample images

• Google Form Mobile UX for Expense Tracking
• Dashboard on Sheets
• Expenses and Income sheets
• Credit Cards

Background:

Almost a year ago on this sub, I had briefly discussed how I manage to track my expenses (comment#1 and comment#2). While there is absolutely nothing that is special about this, and many more sophisticated (and polished) solutions exist, I think those comments resonated with a lot of you who reached out for the template.

So here it is for those of you who wanted to try it. I have my own reasons for sticking to this system for a good couple of years. Every other 3rd party solution/app that I've tried has 2 issues generally

• Questions around privacy and security of my data
• Lacks customization for some very specific needs

While I haven't experimented with too many apps (yes, some apps process data locally, and yes some apps have more features than you can count) I personally don't think I'll get the kind of customization I'm looking for. Still open to suggestions on this.

Pros of this system:

• Highly customizable (add your own categories and sheets for anything you'd like to track - Credit Cards, Big-ticket expenses, Renovation Projects, etc)
  • I've gone as far as using it as a diary to note down important stuff sometimes (just enter it as an expense with a 0 amount) which may be too sensitive for my whatsApp chat with myself
• Reasonable level of privacy and security (Your data is only in your Google Drive and nowhere else)
• Pain-free process of filling up expenses via Google Form on phone (much more convenient than sitting with a PC populating a spreadsheet manually)
• Learning how to work with spreadsheets.

Cons of this system:

• Takes some time to get your own system in place, reach a place where you can track everything you need to. (Hopefully my template can be a starting point)
• Even filling up a form for every expense feels too cumbersome at times. Especially for expenses that happen frequently at regular intervals (I have a partial solution for this). But this is a big disadvantage compared to apps that automatically pick up expenses
• Learning how to work with spreadsheets.

This template had been long pending, and I was finally able to share it. Would be happy to get some feedback/suggestions on how to do this even better. Also feel free to message if the sheet doesn't work as expected - I'm no spreadsheet wizard so I'm sure there are issues/edge cases which I haven't encountered yet.

 

[iamabcg]

@cindy222 Is it worth to spent time on this?

 

[lifechanyuan]

@iamabcg Definitely yes. I started doing this about 6-7 yrs ago & you will realise that there are many non-sense categories, on which I used to spend & now I have reduced it considerably!

Also, goal based approach is fantastic to ensure you save the desired amount

 

[pearllike]

@iamabcg Yes, I Purchased Money Manager from Google Play Store to manage my Income/Expenses. It's worth it, I know where I need to set limits. Reduced Spendings on Swiggy/Zomato, and started diverting that cash to Investing.

 

[coplin48]

@pearllike I purchased Moneywise Pro. Good app, been using it for 9 years, I strongly recommend that one too.

 

[rainwhisper]

@iamabcg IMO, no. Entering expenses manually is a pain in the rear.

I try to use my credit card for all expenses. And then at the end of the month I parse the credit card statement to get a picture of all my expenses.

 

[cindy222]

@rainwhisper This might seem odd, but I actually agree with you for the most part.

After using this for some time, I feel like I already have a good grip on my finances, and now an automated parsing mechanism would be more helpful.

The issue is with older family members not using a single credit card and still being heavily reliant on cash. For me, personally, 1 Bank Account + 1 Credit Card can actually take care of most of my expenses.

 

[subashsingh]

@rainwhisper Just a question, how do you parse the statement? Did you write a custom parser for it?

 

[rainwhisper]

@subashsingh I wrote a script to do OCR on the PDF statement, and extract the data in csv. Then I just import it in google sheets, categorise the transactions based on keyword matching, and finally plot graphs.

 

[cindy222]

@iamabcg Personally I’ve seen both sides. Initially it felt like a hassle setting all of this up. But then there’s the joy of building something from scratch - so there’s that.

For actual expense management, after using it for 2 years I now know exactly how much I spend each month and how to better plan my expenses. And even if I remove all of that - this helps me answer a few usual questions -

• Did I pay my XYZ bill this month?
• I’m supposed to pay Mr. XYZ but I forgot whether XYZ was a beneficiary in account A or account B. If only I could quickly check how I made the payment last time.
• When’s my insurance payment due? Let’s see when I paid last year.

You can answer all these questions through separate apps/mechanisms - but I just go to my sheet by default. It saves a few seconds here and there

 

[faith2016]

@iamabcg I’ve a system like this. Changed to this because when I migrated from Android to IOS, I had to loose the data because that android app I was using doesn’t support ios.

We need not worry about the data loss while migrating when having in google sheets.

 

[epksceontcos]

@iamabcg Yes, but make a note in the tracker. Because time is money.

 

[micky123]

@iamabcg IMHO Yes ,

Especially for those who are finding it hard to stick to a budget ... The likes of YNAB make a killing all the while helping clients save.

 

[10ringshooter]

@cindy222 recently i pulled 1 year bank statement into python notebook and applied all sort of analytics - track expenses, investments, earnings etc. I found paytm as one of big source of expenditure.
Now i have moved to partial cash and it kinda restrict those unnecessary transactions , thanks to this analysis.

 

[maurie]

@10ringshooter From my own itch for categorizing and tagging all my expense data I've come to realize that entries like Paytm and other wallets are a big PITA - it usually just indicates that you spent money via Paytm - but not what you actually spent it on. The UI Paytm has for getting old records is atrocious, its nice if you just need to see the latest few entries but retrieving historical data is annoying.