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Expense Tracker in Excel

Expense Tracker in Excel (Table of Contents)

Introduction to Expense Tracker in Excel

Expense planning or tracker helps you to keep your finances in check, i.e. spending. Expense tracker is an essential track for your monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly spendings. As there are many expense tracker templates available, it may be in excel or with a third party, but it is always better to make your own for a better understanding. It is always better to document your expenses every time you spend; there are two types of expenses: fixed and variable expenses.

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  • Fixed Expenses: Monthly Loan amounts (car, home, personal) & mortgage remains constant month after month, whereas.
  • Variable Expenses: Groceries, Home & utilities, Personal, medical expense & Entertainment fluctuate month on month & variation will be there based on your spendings.
  • Goal Settings: We can set a short or long-term goal with expense planning (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly).

Definition of Expense Tracker

It is an estimate or track of expenditure or expense for a particular set of the time period.

How to Create Expense Tracker in Excel?

Let’s check out, step by step procedure to create an expense tracker in excel.

You can download this Expense Tracker Excel Template here – Expense Tracker Excel Template

If I want to create a family expense planner, the following criteria are kept in mind while creating an expense tracker; I can add the below-mentioned categories to create a template.

You should know or be aware of your monthly expenses or spending, which is categorized into various sections.

1. Home & Utilities

  • House rent
  • Furniture & appliances
  • House Renovations & maintenance
  • Electricity
  • Gas
  • Cleaning Services
  • Water
  • Internet
  • Cable
  • Home phone
  • Mobile
  • Lawn/Garden maintenance

2. Insurance & Financial Section

  • Personal & life insurance (Monthly or Quarterly or Half-yearly or Yearly)
  • Car insurance (Annual)
  • Health insurance (Annual)
  • Home insurance (Annual)
  • Paying off debt if you have taken from someone
  • Savings
  • Investments & super contributions (Stock market or mutual funds)
  • Charity donations to save tax (Annual)
  • Gifts are given on any wedding or other occasion

3. Obligations

  • Car loan
  • Study Loan (Taken during graduation or postgraduation studies)
  • Credit Card bills payment
  • Child Support
  • State/Local Taxes
  • Legal Fees

4. Groceries

  • Supermarket
  • Fruit & veg market (Veg)
  • Butcher or Fish shop (Non-veg)
  • Bakery products
  • Pet food in case if you own a pet

5. Personal & Medical Expense

  • Doctors & medical expense
  • Emergency (Any accidents you met with)
  • Medicines & pharmacy
  • Glasses & eye care
  • Dental
  • Cosmetics & toiletries spending’s
  • Hair & beauty products
  • A health club (Annual or monthly memberships & spendings)
  • Clothing & shoes
  • Jewellery & accessories
  • Computers & gadgets
  • Sports & gym
  • Education – Online or offline course fees
  • Pet care & veterinary expense

6. Entertainment & Dine Out

  • Coffee & tea
  • Lunch
  • Take-away & snacks
  • Cigarettes
  • Drinks & alcohol
  • Bars & clubs
  • Restaurants
  • Books
  • Newspapers & magazines
  • Theater or Movies & music
  • Concerts/Plays
  • Film/Photos
  • Sports
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Celebrations & gifts
  • Club Memberships
  • Videos/DVDs taken on rent or purchased
  • Music
  • Games
  • Toys/Gadgets

7. Transportation Fares

  • Bus & train fare
  • Taxi fare
  • Airfares
  • Petrol
  • Road tolls & parking
  • Registration & license
  • Vehicle Repairs & maintenance
  • Fines paid

8. Child Care

  • Baby products
  • Toys
  • Play home or babysitting fare
  • Childcare
  • Sports & other activities
  • School tuition fees
  • Excursions
  • School uniforms
  • Other school needs

Now, you can add these in excel with each category separately & need to create a category wise batch. If we are creating a monthly expense tracker, we need to create day-wise for each week, i.e. 5 sheets for 5 weeks. Let’s create for week 1, with a day-wise breakup. Category section in column A, i.e. adds each category and its total expense.

Each description in column B and weekdays in a respective column, i.e. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday in column C, D, E, F, G, H, & I, respectively.

Total expense for each description in column J.

Expense excel 1-1

Now add SUM function for each category & its description in a vertical & horizontal range column C till column I cells.

Expense tracker in Excel 1-1

After using the SUM formula, the result is shown below.

Expense tracker in Excel 1-2

Similarly, the above step is followed for another category as well; now, the Week 1 Tracker is ready.

Expense tracker in Excel 1-3

Simultaneously, you need to create 4 weekly trackers apart from this week 1 tracker, based on the number of weeks in a month.

Total Expense 2

Simultaneously, you need to create 4 weekly trackers apart from this week 1 tracker, based on the number of weeks in a month. It can be created by just moving a copy by placing a mouse cursor on a Week 1 Tracker sheet.

Week 1 Tracker

Once you click on “Move or Copy”, its window appears; check the box to create a copy & click on the move to end. So that another copy of the weekly tracker is created so that you can name that sheet as “Week 1 Tracker”.

Move or Copy - 2

In that Week 1 Tracker(1), you just need to update the heading of the week tracker name i.e.

WEEK_2_JANUARY_2019.

Expense tracker in Excel 2-1

Similar steps are followed to create another 3 weeks tracker. Once all the five weeks tracker is created, you need to create one more final sheet, i.e. EXPENSE_TRACKER; it is an overall combination of all the 5 weeks expense tracker to analyze & sum up all the expenses & create a total monthly expense data.

You can create a table, category wise where you need to link each cell to the weekly category total expense for each week. Let’s link the cell reference for week 1; for cell “C4”, you need to link it to cell “J16” of the Week 1 Tracker sheet, i.e. It is a Total expense of the home & utility category for week 1.

Expense tracker in Excel 2-2

Simultaneously, all the weekly category total expenses are linked to relevant cells. In row 12 & column G, you can do the sum for a weekly category total expense.

Total Expense

The expense tracker is ready; once you add expense data in a weekly tracker, it automatically gets updated.

weekly tracker

Things to Remember

  • It will help out to spend the right expense items at the right ratios at the right time when you are in financial difficulty or debt-ridden; an expense tracker analyzes your way and the nature of your spending habits.
  • There are various types of expense templates you can create based on the criteria; we can choose any of the below-mentioned expense templates that fit your needs.
  • Family & Household Expense.
  • Project expense in an organization.
  • Home construction expenses when you are building a house of your own.
  • Wedding expense for your daughter or son.
  • Academic club expenses when you have a yearly membership.
  • College or School expenses for your children.
  • Holiday & shopping expenses when you are on vacation leave.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Excel Expense Tracker. Here we discuss How to create Excel Expense Tracker along with practical examples and a downloadable excel template. You can also go through our other suggested articles –

  1. Excel Project Timeline
  2. How to Use Column Header in Excel?
  3. Move Columns in Excel
  4. How to Copy an Excel Sheet?
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