Tracker FAQs

Sheets - Your checkboxes are showing up as ‘FALSE’ because you are using the Excel file on Google Sheets. If this is the case, you will see a "-xlsx" next to the file name. When you upload Excel to Sheets and download Sheets to Excel it messes up the files, so if you plan to use Google Sheets, you need to download the Google Sheets version of the tracker by opening the PDF file named "2025 Habit/Budget Tracker - SHEETS" and clicking the linked button to download the file. Once the file opens on your browser, copy it to your drive by going to File and selecting Make a Copy. This should fix this issue!

Excel - The FALSE indicates that you don’t have the new checkboxes in your version of Excel. To use the new checkboxes, you need to be using Microsoft 365 and make sure your Excel is up-to-date to see the checkboxes. If you don’t want to upgrade your version of Excel, you can either enter ‘TRUE’ in the cell you are *checking off* or you can use the Google Sheets version.

For non-monthly expenses and incomes, estimate the total annual amount, divide that number by 12, and add it as a category in the SETUP tab. Once you receive the payment/pay the expense, you can either add the entire amount to the monthly tab or calculate the monthly amount by dividing the amount by the number of months it’s for and then add that value to each monthly tab. If you add the entire amount to the monthly tab, you will see a spike in that month's income/spending. If you divide the amount by the number of months and add that amount to each month, it bakes the irregular expense/income into your budget, so it doesn’t look as irregular. Whichever way you’d prefer to see the expense/payment would work!

To account for income increases throughout the year, I recommend hardcoding the previous month’s income goals by selecting the goal column in the income table, copying the values, and pressing CTRL SHIFT V to paste as values. Once you hardcode the month’s goals that you’ve already filled out, you can update the income in the SETUP tab to adjust the future month's income.

Of course, you can! Just copy the date and the amount of the transaction one column at a time into the transaction tracker. It will probably unmerge the cells, but that’s okay! All of the formulas will still work. Once the date and the amount are copied in, select the category from the dropdown!

Yes of course! Just use the Excel version and save it to your desktop/local drive/hard drive. If change your mind and you want to use it on the web, you can use the Sheets version. You will get both files once you purchase.

You can aggregate all of your monthly spending seamlessly using the transaction tracker. This tracker allows you to enter your transactions and then select the category you want the transaction to fall under. You can enter your transactions at the end of each day, week, month, really whenever you'd like! I personally like to enter my transactions at the end of each week so I can see everything I spent money on, where I can cut down, and how close I am getting to my monthly spending goal in the Planned vs. Actual spending chart.

Of course! Just enter the date you are entering the total expense amount and the total amount, and then select the respective category in the transaction tracker, and it will work the exact same. Once the totals are entered, you'll be able to see how close you are to your spending goal and how much of the month you have to go in the Planned vs. Actual spending chart. The next time you update the total amounts, just update the date and the total amount in entries you already entered.

Sheets - Your Google Sheets dropdowns may be blank because you are using an Excel file on Google Sheets. You will see a "-xlsx" next to the file name if this is the case. If you plan to use Google Sheets, you need to download the Google Sheets version of the tracker. If you are not using an Excel file on Google Sheet’s, please share the link to your file and I will look into this error for you!

 

Excel - The functions for the dropdowns use formulas only available to Microsoft 365 and I believe Excel 2021, so if you are using an older version, that would be why they are blank. If you don't want to use Google Sheets, I found a workaround to get the dropdowns to work in older versions of Excel. Please send me your file and I will fix this for you!

Google Sheets: To change the currency, select the whole sheet by clicking the button between “A” and “1” in the upper lefthand corner (or, you can select the sections of cells that you’d like to change to another currency). Then, select Format > Number > Custom Currency and select your desired currency from the dropdown!

Excel: To change the currency, select the whole sheet by clicking the button between “A” and “1” in the upper lefthand corner so it selects all cells (or, you can select the sections of cells that you’d like to change to another currency). Then, in the Home ribbon,” select the dropdown next to the $ and select your currency of choice.

Google Sheets: To change the format of dates select the dates you want to reformat > select Format > Number > Custom Date and Time and select the format you want to update the dates to here.

Excel: To change the format of the dates select the dates you want to reformat > open the Number Formatting dropdown > select More Number Formats > select Dates and then select the format you want to update the dates to here.

If you are actively contributing to the savings account, add them to the savings table and set a monthly goal amount you wish to contribute to the account each month. If you have a total goal for the account, you can enter it in the goal amount column. If you don’t, you can leave that column blank and just use the table to track monthly contributions! If you aren’t actively contributing to the account, you don’t need to enter them into the tracker because its primary purpose is to set and track monthly spending/savings goals.

You can access the Google Sheets version online from any device on your Google Drive. You can access the Excel version on any device you have Microsoft 365 Excel installed on.

Yes! To add more transactions rows, just insert as many rows as you’d like in the middle of the transaction tracker. When you expand the range in the middle, the formula ranges will automatically update.

The epilogue font is only available in Google Sheets. In order to update the font, you would have to install the epilogue font into your Excel account and then update the font manually.