Excel Budget Template – How To

1. Getting Your Excel Template Setup

In This Section We’ll Review Setting Up Your Excel:

  1. Budget Categorization
  2. Monthly Budget
  3. Income Categorization
  4. https://youtu.be/YZfkAXzel8M

1. Creating A Budget

Start by clicking on the budget scenario tab. The monthly budget scenario is broken into 8 categories (highlighted in orange on Figure 1).

    • Housing & Utilities
    • Food & Household Items
    • Personal
    • Debt
    • Transportation
    • Entertainment
    • Savings
    • Monthly Income Sources

Inputting Budget Information:

  1. Start off by entering your monthly income under the “Estimated Base Income”. If you have any additional income that varies from month to month you can enter it under “Additional Income”.  Next you want to fill out the other categories and sub-categories.  Start off by estimating what you are currently spending on each category, unless you already have a budget created.  This will give you a good starting point.

Adjusting Your Budget:

  1. Monthly Budget Summary shows you the current allocation of your budget. Figure 2 shows the budget created on the right side as

2. Import Bank Statements

Importing Credit Card & Checking/Savings Account Data (optional):

  • If you do not want to upload your transactions in bulk, you may enter them individual (not recommended).
  1. Start off by visiting your financial institutions website.  Under your activity you should have an option to download transactions.  You’ll want to select the export option of CSV (Comma-separated values) or the excel format.
  2. After downloading your activity open the file.
  3. Copy the content (including the headers) and paste into the Bank Upload tab
  4. Then click the Import Bank Data
  5. A window will popup with two options.  Select the appropriate account type
    • Credit Card
    • Checking/Savings
  6. Look at your export from your financial institution and determine which applies and select that option
    • Amount (1 column)
    • Credit And Debit (2 Columns)
  7. Depending if you selected Amount or Credit And Debit, you’ll see 3 or 4 boxes.  The drop downs will have a list of all the columns from your financial institution export. Click the drop down for each one.
    1. Transaction Date Column:
    2. Description Column:
    3. Amount Column (if you selected Amount from step 6):
    4. Debit Amount Column (if you selected Credit And Debit from step 6):
    5. Select Credit Column (if you selected Credit And Debit from step 6):
  8. Click the Validation Check
  9. The next screen will have you review the data that has been imported.  All Incoming payments will be removed (such as payments on credit cards).  Now click Check for Duplicates.
  10. The popup window will tell you how many transactions were imported into the tool.  Excel will look for duplicate entries that you might have already uploaded and remove them.
  11. Your data has all been imported!

3. Updating Master Categorization

https://youtu.be/iYAPUxvhq6Y

Opening Master Categorization

  1. On the Main Page Tab Click “Open Excel Budget Calculator Menu”
  2. The Open Excel Budget Calculator Menu will popup.  Click the drop-down and select “Classification Of Spend & Income”.  Then click Excute
  3. All of your Naming & Categorization will be displayed.
  4. Filters:
    • Search Description: This allows your to search the Description, which is helpful when applying bulk categorization.
    • Pending Review: If this is checked, you will only see Descriptions that have not been categorized.
  5. Selecting items:
    • Use the mouse to select one or a grouping of items
    • For items that are not grouped together, press and hold down the Ctrl and click the items
  6. Naming & Categorization Update
    • Click the drop drown and select a category
    • Based on that category the Sub Category will refresh and show relevant options for the subcategory.  Now select a Sub Category
    • Preferred Description Name: Allows you to enter a common name, if this is left blank the Description will show as the name.
    • Always Default To This Category:  When checked, this will automatically categorize your data.  If this is Not check you will have to manually categorize each transacation.
  7. Click Save
  8. Naming & Categorization Update:

4. Using the Dashboard

Settings & Views:

  • Time Period: Use the arrows to change the time period

Summary For