Know where the money went against the plan

What's inside

• Budget. One row per category, marked Income or Expense, with a budget for each month. Seasonal businesses can plan a busy November differently from a quiet February. A check column warns you if a category name is used twice.
• Transactions. One row per payment in or out: date, description, category from a dropdown, and the amount. Rows outside the budget year, or in a category that isn't on the budget, are flagged so they don't silently go missing.
• Monthly Review. Pick a month on Settings and see budget, actual, variance and status for every category, plus the same figures for the year to date and your profit against plan.
• Year Overview. Actual amounts by month for every category, next to the full-year budget and how much of it is left.
• Sample data. Fifteen typical categories and three months of transactions, so you can see the review working before you add your own.

How the variance works

Variance is always + when it's good for you and - when it's bad. For income that's actual minus budget. For expenses it's budget minus actual, so spending 200 less than planned shows as +200. That's the favourable/unfavourable convention accountants use, without having to remember which way round it goes.

• Over budget / Below target: further from budget than your on-track range, in the wrong direction.
• Under budget / Above target: further from budget than your range, in your favour.
• Not budgeted: money moved in a category with no budget that month.

The on-track range is 5% to start. Change it on Settings if small swings don't matter to you.

Using it

1. On Settings, type the year the budget is for.
2. On Budget, replace the sample categories with your own and fill in each month. Last year's real numbers are the best starting point.
3. Delete the sample transactions and log your own, or paste them from a bank export.
4. Once a month, pick the month on Settings and read Monthly Review. Deal with the red lines first, then look at the year-to-date column. One bad month matters less than a trend.

In Google Sheets: upload to Drive, right-click → Open with → Google Sheets, then File → Save as Google Sheets.

Related reading

• Want the profit and loss and cash flow too? The small business bookkeeping template works from the same kind of transaction list.
• An e-commerce manager should be looking at the whole business, not just the store.
• Setting an ad budget? Google's recommended budget is not your business strategy.