As a follow up to the post and video on how to create your own checkbook register in Microsoft Excel, a lot of people have asked about how they could see totals by category of their spending. While I do have several pre-built templates for Microsoft Excel to handle this, it can be rewarding to learn how to use pivot tables in Excel for this purpose.
I’m a teacher at heart and I like helping people. If you would like to learn more about Excel and how to see totals by category, I have a step-by-step video on how to do so. Use the pause button as needed in the video to follow along.
Why Use Excel for a Checkbook Register?
There are a lot of good reasons to keep a copy of your checkbook register in Excel. This includes:
- It’s easy to go back in time to find an old transaction. Most bank websites will limit or cripple your ability to see older transactions. Or they’ll offer your statements in PDF format, but searching across many PDF files becomes way too tedious.
- You can quickly see how much you’ve been spending in a particular category. Yes, that can be frightening! But helpful nonetheless.
- You can forecast how the rest of the month looks by entering bills that you know will come due, and then figure out how much money you’ll have left for other things. This is where my Excel spreadsheet shines over the others.
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To see all of the latest versions of the Excel checkbook register spreadsheet, please visit this site dedicated to that content