This is where you specify your accounts, and your income and expense categories. Everything starts with this sheet.

Specify at least one equity account. You need an equity account for each owner of the entity. If you’re using the spreadsheet as your personal budget, you are the entity, and thus, you are the only owner.

Next, specify all your current (short-term) assets and liabilities, like your current and credit card accounts, any clothing or other store accounts you may have, etc.

Then, specify all your long-term assets and liabilities, e.g any property and vehicles you own, your investments, your bond, your vehicle loans, etc.

Next, specify all your sources of income.

Finally, specify all your expense categories.

Use this sheet to set your initial account balances (opening balances) and perform account admin (e.g. corrections).

To open an account for an asset, debit the asset’s account that you specified in the Setup tab-sheet, and credit the appropriate equity account.

To open an account for a liability (loan), credit the liability’s account that you specified in the Setup tab-sheet, and debit the appropriate equity account.

In general, you should only ever need to use this sheet when opening or finalizing your accounts. For any transactions, you should use the Transfers, Expenses and Income tab-sheets.

Use this sheet to record all transfers between accounts.

Here are a few examples of transfers. When you:
- transfer money from one account to another using Internet Banking
- draw cash at an ATM
- make a payment on your credit card
- make a home-loan payment
- make a payment on any loan
- make an investment
- buy a house
- buy a car
- buy shares

Any transaction that increases one current or long-term account, and decreases another, is a transfer. Transfers are not expenses; they do not effect your net worth.

Use this sheet to record all your expenses.

For each expense, enter a description, the date on which the expense was incurred, the expense category and the account from which the expense was paid.

Use this sheet to record all your income.

For each income, enter a description, the date on which the income was received, the income category and the account into which the income was received.

Use this sheet to display your account balances, on a specific date.

Enter the date for which you wish to see the account balances in the provided field (you can enter ‘=now()’ to see the account balances for the current date).

Use this sheet create a budget for a specified period of time, and track how your actual income and expenses compare to your budgeted income and expenses.

Enter the from- and to- date for the budget in the fields provided. Then, enter the amounts you think you will receive for each income category, and the amounts you think you will spend for each expense category, during the specified time period.

The budget will automatically display summaries of the actual expenses and income and the net profit/loss that were made between the two dates, and how these amounts differ from the amounts you budgeted.

Hint: If you want to create multiple budgets (e.g. one for each month), right click on the tab-sheet’s tab, and click on ‘Move or Copy’. Tick the box that says ‘Create a copy’, select the tab where you want the new budget to be positioned, and click on ‘OK’.

Use this sheet to display a balance sheet, on a specific date.

Enter the date for which you wish to see a balance sheet in the provided field (you can enter ‘=now()’ to see the balance sheet for the current date).

Use this sheet to display an income statement, for a specified period of time.

Enter the from- and to- date in the fields provided, to see summaries of all the expenses and income, and the net profit/loss that were made between the two dates.