Use Excel to keep track of your finances

Excel spreadsheets can seem daunting if you have never been shown how to use them. When you fire one up you’re confronted by a grid of blank cells and there’s no obvious next move.

Despite their appearance, spreadsheets are not complicated. They’re just electronic versions of the everyday tabular documents we’re familiar with, such as bank statements, price lists and timetables.

The main difference is when you need to calculate a balance, keep a running total, or work out the duration of a journey, a spreadsheet will work out the answer for you. This makes spreadsheets ideal for keeping track not only of bank statements, but of every aspect of personal finance.

What do you need?
All you need is a spreadsheet program (we’re using Microsoft Excel) and the patience to record transactions as you make them. You can then reconcile your figures with those listed on statements received at the end of each month or year.

A spreadsheet record makes your true financial position instantly visible. When you choose to go into debt by taking out a loan or not paying off your credit cards in full, a spreadsheet helps you manage the debt and clear it in the shortest possible time.

Any spreadsheet can do the job, provided it has tabbed worksheets capable of being loaded and saved as a single file. This rules out Microsoft Works, which can only load and save a single worksheet at a time, but any of the Office suite spreadsheets will do fine.

We’ve used Excel to construct a sample personal finance spreadsheet you can download and play with. It’s called Moneytrack.xls. It’s probably best to work through this feature with the spreadsheet open on your screen.

Downloadable data
Many banks and utility companies provide online statements with a facility to download these in Excel-compatible formats. If you want to try your hand at downloading a statement in spreadsheet format, check the onscreen options the next time you are viewing an online bank statement or bill, and look for a button promising downloads or exports.

Follow the onscreen instructions and, if more than one format is offered, select CSV (Comma Separated Values). It’s a universal format and most spreadsheets can load CSV files by clicking their File menu, choosing Open and locating the file.