Free Expense Tracker Spreadsheet: an Income and Expense Template That Does the Maths

This is a free expense tracker spreadsheet: one Excel file with an income and expense log and a summary tab that does all the adding up for you. Download it below, open it in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice, and replace the sample rows with your own month.

Underneath the download you will find what each column is for, a filled-in example month, the exact formulas the summary uses, and an honest note on when a spreadsheet stops being the right tool.

What is in the file

• Transactions tab: six columns, a frozen header row, a filter on every column and a dropdown in the Type column, so “Income” and “Expense” are always spelt the same way.
• Summary tab: four headline numbers at the top and a category table underneath with spent, budget and remaining for each category.
• A sample month: 22 realistic rows for September, so you can see every formula working before you type anything.
• No macros, no add-ins, no hidden sheets. Every number on the Summary tab comes from a plain formula you can click and read.

The six columns, and why each one is there

A spreadsheet that people keep using has few columns, and every one of them earns its place. These are the six in the Transactions tab:

• Date: the day the money moved. Real Excel dates, shown in your own regional format, so sorting and filtering by month just work.
• Type: Income or Expense. The summary formulas read this column, so the spelling has to match exactly; the dropdown takes care of that.
• Category: Housing, Groceries, Bills, Transport, Eating out & fun, Health, Clothing and Other for spending; Salary and Side income for money coming in. Eight spending categories are enough for most households, and Other is allowed.
• Description: a few words, such as “Weekly shop” or “Car insurance”. In three months you will not remember what a bare 96.00 was.
• Amount: income as a positive number, expenses as a negative one. That single convention means the total of the column is your net for the month.
• Account: Bank account, Credit card or Cash. Keeping the card separate is what stops the statement from surprising you at the end of the month.

An example month, filled in

Here is a shortened version of the sample data that comes with the template:

With all 22 rows in, the Summary tab shows total income of 3,150.00, total expenses of 2,436.32, a net of 713.68 and a savings rate of 22.7%. The category table is where it gets useful:

Clothing ended 4.99 over budget, and Transport came within 5.50 of its limit. That is the whole point of the Remaining column: clothing turned red on the 20th, the day the shoes went in, while there was still time to hold back somewhere else, not on the 31st when the month is already spent.

The formulas, explained

You never have to edit these, but knowing them lets you add categories or build your own version from scratch. The cell references are the ones in the template:

• Total income: =SUMIF(Transactions!B:B,"Income",Transactions!E:E) adds every amount in column E whose type in column B is Income.
• Total expenses: =-SUMIF(Transactions!B:B,"Expense",Transactions!E:E) does the same for Expense. The minus in front turns the negative sum into a positive total.
• Net: =B3-B4, income minus expenses. A negative net means the month cost more than you earned.
• Savings rate: =IF(B3=0,0,B5/B3), net divided by income. The IF only prevents a divide-by-zero error in an empty month. Around 20% is a healthy target.
• Spent per category: =-SUMIFS(Transactions!E:E,Transactions!B:B,"Expense",Transactions!C:C,A9) applies two conditions at once: the type is Expense and the category matches the name in column A.
• Remaining: =C9-B9, budget minus spent, shown in red when it goes negative.

Below the category table there is a check line: expenses in categories not listed above. It should always read zero. If it does not, a category in the Transactions tab is misspelt or missing from the summary list, and that spending is not being counted against any budget.

If your Excel or Google Sheets uses a comma as the decimal separator, which is the case across most of Europe and Latin America, you type formulas with semicolons instead of commas. The file itself works everywhere; this only matters when you write a new formula by hand.

How to use it, month by month

1. Delete the sample rows but keep the header. Change the budgets on the Summary tab to your own numbers.
2. On the first of the month, enter your income and every fixed cost you already know: rent, loan payments, phone, insurance, subscriptions.
3. Log variable spending on the day it happens. A three-day backlog is where most spreadsheets quietly die.
4. Look at the Remaining column once a week, not only at the end of the month.
5. At the end of the month, save a copy of the file under the next month’s name and clear the rows. One file per month keeps the formulas simple and lets you compare months side by side.

Adding your own category

Insert a row inside the category table on the Summary tab, anywhere between the first and the last category so the Total row still covers it. Type the name in column A and copy the formulas in columns B and D down from the row above. Then use exactly the same name in the Category column of your transactions.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

A spreadsheet is a great way to start, and for some people it is all they will ever need. Most people, though, hit the same walls within a couple of months:

• Typing every receipt. Date, type, category, amount, account: around a minute per purchase, every single day.
• Your phone. Spending happens away from the laptop, and editing cells on a small screen is fiddly, so entries get postponed and then forgotten.
• Several accounts and currencies. One SUMIF per account per currency gets messy quickly.
• No reminders. A spreadsheet will not tell you that a bill is due or that a budget is about to run out.

That gap is what Personal Accounting is built for. It is an iOS and Android app with a free plan and a Premium tier, and it keeps the same logic as this file (transactions, categories, budgets) while removing most of the typing:

• Photograph a receipt and the AI reads the amount, date and category.
• Say an expense out loud instead of typing it.
• Import a PDF bank statement to bring in a whole month of transactions at once.
• Set category budgets, savings goals and recurring transactions, keep track of debts, and run several accounts in different currencies.
• Check the month at a glance from a home-screen widget.

Your spreadsheet is not wasted if you switch. The app imports CSV and Excel files with column mapping: you confirm which column is the date, amount, type, category and account, and the headers in this template are recognised automatically. Categories and accounts that do not exist yet are created during the import.

The app does not connect to your bank and does not read your SMS or bank notifications. What goes in is what you photograph, say, type or import.

Frequently asked questions

Does the template work in Google Sheets?

Yes. Upload the .xlsx file to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. SUMIF, SUMIFS and the Type dropdown all carry over. Apple Numbers and LibreOffice open it as well.

Should expenses be negative or positive?

Negative. The template relies on it: the expense formulas flip the sign back, and the Amount column total equals your net for the month. If you would rather type expenses as positive numbers, remove the leading minus from the total-expenses and spent-per-category formulas, and never mix the two styles in one file.

Can I track a whole year in one file?

You can, but the Summary tab would add every month together. The simplest approach is one copy per month. If you want a year in one place, add a Month column and a month condition to the SUMIFS formulas.

Is it really free?

Yes. There is no email gate and no sign-up: the download button above is the whole file. Use it, change it, share it.

Can I move my spreadsheet into an app later?

Into Personal Accounting, yes. Upload the .xlsx itself or export the Transactions tab as CSV, confirm the column mapping once, and your history comes with you.