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Budgetary Excel Modeling
Posted on 9/5/14 at 8:57 am
Posted on 9/5/14 at 8:57 am
Anyone here do some intuitive/useful modeling of their expenses and budgets in Excel? Or something else you can personally manipulate and analyze financially in excel on a regular/ongoing basis?
Recently been diving into teaching myself VBA, and used it as an opportunity to also digitize and centralize all of my transactional data with regards to bank and credit card accounts. Goes back 7 years.
Wanted to see if anyone has their own excel tracking methods they'd like to share. Or share useful ways they like to use this kind of data. Would love to continue to build out my models.
Recently been diving into teaching myself VBA, and used it as an opportunity to also digitize and centralize all of my transactional data with regards to bank and credit card accounts. Goes back 7 years.
Wanted to see if anyone has their own excel tracking methods they'd like to share. Or share useful ways they like to use this kind of data. Would love to continue to build out my models.
This post was edited on 9/5/14 at 8:58 am
2
Posted on 9/5/14 at 9:55 am to Swoopin
I spend several hours each work day writing software and building out reports based on business data. I also spend several hours a week maintaining a centralized record of my budget in Excel. At the end of the day, I rarely apply my knowledge from work to the spreadsheet I've built, although I have come across many potential areas of improvement. If you are like me, you will begin development of your spreadsheet with a lot of motivation but get tired of the amount of time put towards it. As long as I can check my progress (spending too much? Not saving enough?), I am overall satisfied. Anyways, I will give you a run down of my budget spreadsheet, and ask that you expand on what exactly you wish to model within your budget.
My spreadsheet consists of multiple tabs. I keep a high-level tab labeled 'Summary' where I can analyze categorical spending and monthly spending. All of the data presented in the Summary tab is aggregated and pulled from the 'Details' tab where I log all of my income and expenses. Within the Details tab I have a column for each of the following:
- Category
- Each day of the year
- Summation of the category
- Summation of category spending from the previous year
- Summation of projected spending within the category
Example of logging a transaction:
On 9/1/2014 I went to Walmart and bought $30 worth of groceries. I would navigate to the cell for Details -> Groceries > Walmart > 9/1/2014 > and plug in $30. This would then update the totals for my summation columns, and my summary tab.
I also have a tab for each credit card so I can track my current balance compared to the posted balance online. Can be considered overkill yet it works for me.
I have been maintaining a budget spreadsheet going on 3 years now, and I get more enjoyment out of them after the year ends and reviewing spending, than I do maintaining during the year. Good luck to you on your work and you will feel rewarded (if anything making a budget spreadsheet will teach you Excel).
My spreadsheet consists of multiple tabs. I keep a high-level tab labeled 'Summary' where I can analyze categorical spending and monthly spending. All of the data presented in the Summary tab is aggregated and pulled from the 'Details' tab where I log all of my income and expenses. Within the Details tab I have a column for each of the following:
- Category
- Each day of the year
- Summation of the category
- Summation of category spending from the previous year
- Summation of projected spending within the category
Example of logging a transaction:
On 9/1/2014 I went to Walmart and bought $30 worth of groceries. I would navigate to the cell for Details -> Groceries > Walmart > 9/1/2014 > and plug in $30. This would then update the totals for my summation columns, and my summary tab.
I also have a tab for each credit card so I can track my current balance compared to the posted balance online. Can be considered overkill yet it works for me.
I have been maintaining a budget spreadsheet going on 3 years now, and I get more enjoyment out of them after the year ends and reviewing spending, than I do maintaining during the year. Good luck to you on your work and you will feel rewarded (if anything making a budget spreadsheet will teach you Excel).
Posted on 9/5/14 at 1:59 pm to Swoopin
Mine is really funky but I track everything on 14 day periods since I get paid every other Friday.
The general idea is that each two week period I estimate what my expenses should be and when, then at the end of 2 weeks I adjust and see where I went overbudget and plan for the next two weeks.
It's super funky and would probably make ZERO sense to anyone else, but I've got it so highly automated in excel that it works so easily for me. Just play around with stuff and you'll find out what you like while teaching yourself more about excel than you ever wanted to
The general idea is that each two week period I estimate what my expenses should be and when, then at the end of 2 weeks I adjust and see where I went overbudget and plan for the next two weeks.
It's super funky and would probably make ZERO sense to anyone else, but I've got it so highly automated in excel that it works so easily for me. Just play around with stuff and you'll find out what you like while teaching yourself more about excel than you ever wanted to
Posted on 9/5/14 at 2:38 pm to jso0003
I have a similar system, though I do mine weekly since the wife and I get paid in alternate weeks. It's not that fancy, but it helps us monitor where we need to buckle down in expenditures.
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