11 Simple Steps to Build a Monthly Budget Tracker with Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel stands out as an accessible tool for tracking basic expenses, provided you commit to a consistent input method. Notably, you can achieve a significant amount with minimal prior knowledge or experience in Excel. By establishing a simple template or framework, you can begin customizing it to extract the information you need.

How to Manually Create a Monthly Budget Tracker in Excel

Step 1: Set Up a New Workbook and Create a Sheet for Income and Expense Streams

Starting from scratch means it’s advantageous to compile a list of anticipated income and expenses. You can create this list either broadly or with more detailed categories.

Here’s a concise overview of potential categories you might include, which can be recorded in the first sheet titled “Categories.”

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Step 2: Add a New Sheet for the First Month

Select a new sheet within your workbook and rename it to reflect the specific month and year you wish to monitor.

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Step 3: Outline Your Categories

Develop two smaller tables to differentiate between income and expenses, listing the categories vertically underneath one another.

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At this stage, you have the option to either summarize your budget for each month in a simplified manner or create a more intricate table that accounts for daily or weekly expenses.

Step 4: Organize Expenses by Days or Weeks

A mixed approach can be adopted here. Tracking your spending on a weekly basis can ease the process, but certain necessary expenses may only occur monthly. Therefore, you might detail the “Food” category by specific weeks.

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Step 5: Apply Formulas for Weekly or Daily Totals

For every category tracking expenses weekly or daily, you should create a ‘Total’ cell that computes the sum of the respective row using the formula ” =SUM(Start_Cell:End_Cell).”

Here’s how to do this:

Click on the cell designated for the total.
Type the equals sign.
Input “SUM” and hit “Tab.”
Highlight the cells you wish to add together.
Press “Enter.”

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You will need to carry out this process for each category; however, you can expedite it by using the Fill Handle in the bottom-right corner of the cell to drag down and apply the formula to the next row.

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Step 6: Insert Subtotals for Each Category

To streamline the process, add an additional row to each subcategory for listing its subtotal, which will contribute to the overall total.

To add a row, right-click the header below the targeted row and choose “Insert.” For example, to create a subtotal under “Salary,” right-click row 7 to insert a new entry there.

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This is a brief illustration of how the table should be formatted.

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Step 7: Compute the Subtotals

Utilize the same SUM formula used for the weekly food tally to derive subtotals for each category.

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Step 8: Compute the Total Monthly Figures

Develop a compact table that records all categories along with their respective subtotals. Reference each “Subtotal” directly—for instance, referencing income subtotal from cell C7 with ” =C7.” This can be accomplished by selecting a cell, typing the equals sign, clicking on the desired cell, and then pressing “Enter.”