Is a spreadsheet or an app better for budgeting?
A spreadsheet is better if you enjoy building it, have a few accounts in one currency and will update it every week. An app is better if you'd rather import than type, hold money in several currencies, share with a partner or want a forecast. Either works if you keep it up to date.
| Compared on | Budget spreadsheet | Budgeting app |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Often a subscription, though some have a free plan |
| Getting transactions in | Typed or pasted by you | Imported from your bank's file, or synced |
| Several currencies | Rates you look up and enter | Converted for you, ideally at each day's rate |
| Sharing | The whole file or nothing | Only what you choose, in some apps |
| Looking ahead | Formulas you build yourself | A forecast, in some apps |
| Your data | A file you own | On the app's servers, and exportable in a good one |
When is a budget spreadsheet enough?
When your money is simple and you like the routine. One or two accounts, one currency, a steady income and the habit of entering spending every week is a setup a spreadsheet handles well. It costs nothing, needs no account, works offline, and you decide every column and formula yourself.
- You have a handful of accounts, all in one currency.
- You don't mind typing or pasting each month's transactions.
- Nobody else needs to see part of it and not the rest.
- You want to design your own categories, formulas and charts.
How do you set up a simple budget spreadsheet?
Start with one sheet of transactions: a row for each, with its date, a description, an amount and a category. Add a second sheet that totals each category by month, and compare those totals with what you planned to spend. Update it from your bank statements at the same time every week.
- Make a Transactions sheet with the columns date, description, amount and category, or start from the template further down.
- Write money out as a negative amount and money in as a positive one, so a sum gives you the change in your balance.
- Add a Summary sheet that totals each category for each month, beside a column for what you planned to spend.
- Once a week, copy your new transactions from your bank, paste them in and give each one a category.
- Once a month, compare each category with your plan, and check that the balance in the sheet matches your bank.
Keep the categories few, ten or fifteen at most, and name them the way you think about money. A category you never look at only adds typing.
What are the downsides of a budget spreadsheet?
Most of the work is yours. Every transaction has to be typed or pasted, every formula maintained, and one broken range can quietly throw a total off. Currencies need exchange rates you look up yourself, sharing is all or nothing, and a spreadsheet won't remind you of a bill or warn you before you overspend.
None of this is a reason to give up a spreadsheet that's working. It's worth knowing where the effort goes, though: a budget only helps while you keep it up, and the typing is what makes that hard.
What does a budgeting app do that a spreadsheet doesn't?
It does the repetitive parts for you: reading your bank's export, filing transactions by payee, converting currencies at each day's rate, adding recurring bills on their due date and keeping balances that add up. Many also forecast your balance, flag new subscriptions and let a partner see only what you share.
In Let's Save, our own app, the free plan has unlimited accounts in any currency, CSV, Excel and OFX import, sharing with a partner, and a spending check that finds subscriptions and bills in your own transactions. Plus, at $3.99 a month or $39.90 a year before tax, adds your whole history, a forecast up to 24 months ahead and reports.
The trade-off is control. An app decides how its screens look, and your data lives on its servers. Let's Save lets you export everything as JSON, or your transactions as CSV, at any time, so you can go back to a spreadsheet whenever you like.
Is there a free budget spreadsheet template?
Yes. The Let's Save standard import template is a free Excel workbook, with a CSV version, laid out as a plain transaction list: a date, a description and an amount on each row, with optional columns for account, category, payee and notes. It works as a spreadsheet on its own and imports into Let's Save unchanged.
The workbook also has sheets for accounts, categories, scheduled payments and goals, plus example sheets with filled-in rows. Write dates as YYYY-MM-DD, money out as a negative number and money in as a positive one, with a dot for decimals and no currency symbol.
Because the columns are fixed and published, Let's Save recognises the file and skips the mapping step entirely. An AI assistant can fill it from a bank statement too, if you give it the guide written for assistants.
See every column of the standard import format
Can you use a budget spreadsheet and an app together?
Yes, and it's a sensible way to try an app without giving anything up. Keep your transactions in the template's columns, import the file into Let's Save when you want its forecast or reports, and export your transactions back to CSV whenever you like. Neither one locks you in.
An import can be undone for 30 days, so try it with a few months of history. If the app adds nothing for you, undo the import and keep the spreadsheet.