Track expenses with Excel spreadsheets: Expense tracker templates and more

Start with an Excel expense-tracker template

Microsoft 365 offers thousands of premium and professional templates for Excel, including one for a personal monthly budget. Designed to be clear and concise, it covers all the basic expenses a household might pay for in an average month.

The fundamental questions you want to be able to answer with a quick glimpse are, “What did I spend my money on, and how much did I spend?” Spreadsheet software like Excel is ideal for displaying this information in rows and columns that can be ranked into categories.

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Important categories in your personal budget

For the average household, expense-tracker templates usually contain the following:

• Housing: mortgage payments, home repairs, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes.
• Transportation: auto loans, public transit fare, and car maintenance and repairs.
• Utilities: gas, water, heat, electricity, and internet.
• Entertainment: streaming subscriptions, video games, live shows, upcoming vacations, and weekend getaways.
• Emergency savings: an emergency savings fund to keep you prepared for anything.
• Goals: savings for a new car, appliance upgrade, or college fund.

Make the most of your Excel tracking spreadsheet

In an Excel tracking template, create new sheets for each of these major spending categories. Then, break them down to look at 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.). Your rows can be tied to the months in this year when you’re anticipating monthly payments or saving for major repairs.

Estimate how much you’ll pay per month for utilities, or if you know that you have a fixed rate for mortgages and loans, fill in the blanks in your tracker ahead of time.

Lastly, tally up the total cost of your expenses across columns. Use the AutoSum feature to see how much you’ll be spending per month or year, and tweak your budget to match your goals.

Effortlessly track expenses with Excel

Manage your finances with this free expense tracker template

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Business expenses to consider for your monthly tracker

If you own a small business, you’ll have expenses in different categories to track. Some of the most common categories for business expenses include:

• Supplier costs
• Work travel (broken down to lodging, meals, etc.)
• Office supplies
• Workplace rent
• Employee insurance and benefits
• Business loans

Business-focused tracking templates are available for Excel, including specific ones that keep track of your bill payments, general ledgers, or even expense reports for startups.

There are more benefits to using a tracking spreadsheet for your business! By tracking expenses, you can watch out for potential sources for fraud, such as monetary discrepancies. And when tax season rolls around, draw from your expense tracker instead of hunting down receipts for your tax preparer.

Of course, a properly calculated budget doesn’t just happen overnight. Check out more budgeting advice, tips, and tricks so you can make the most out of your money, and try Excel to track your expenses in free and premium spreadsheets.