How Do You Make An Income And Expense Spreadsheet?
Maintaining accurate records of your business's financial inflows and outflows is crucial for all small business owners.
And the best way to do that is to create an income and expense spreadsheet.
I suggest using a spreadsheet tool like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to track your income and expenses.
You can easily make an income and expense spreadsheet by:
- Manually entering your income and expenses into a spreadsheet tool like Google Sheets or Excel, then format the sheet to your liking.
- Using an income and expense spreadsheet template.
- Downloading Sheetify Bookkeeping (Google Sheets all-in-one accounting template).
What is an income and expense spreadsheet?
An income and expense spreadsheet is essentially a monthly or annual spreadsheet filled with a list of all your business-related incomings and outgoings.
It's a super helpful tool when the tax year rolls around, as you can clearly view your entire year's worth of earnings and spending in one glance.
Plus, it can help with budgets, future planning, and the overall financial health of your business.
Typically, it includes various columns or sections where income streams are recorded alongside various expenses, such as rent, utilities, salaries, and other operational costs.
How to make an income and expense spreadsheet in Google Sheets?
Sure, you can use a traditional accounting system to manage your financial activities.
But for many businesses, a complex accounting solution like Xero or QuickBooks is simply unnecessary.
As I mentioned earlier, you can make a basic income and expense spreadsheet by simply entering your business data into a spreadsheet tool like Google Sheets.
To make a monthly income and expense spreadsheet:
- Open a new Google Sheets
- Title your spreadsheet something along the lines of ‘[Yourbusinessname] Income and Expenses.’
- Add a new sheet titled ‘Income [Month or Year.’
- In the top rows of your new sheet (A1, A2, A3, A4, etc), add the title ‘Date,’ ‘Item,’ ‘Income Type,’ ‘Amount,’ ‘Tax,’ ‘Net income,’ etc.
- Add another new sheet and title it ‘Expenses [Month or Year].’
- In the top rows of this new sheet (A1, A2, A3, A4, etc), add the same titles as the ‘Income’ sheet.
- At the bottom of each sheet, use the =SUM formula to calculate that month's total income and expenses.
- To calculate your net income, subtract the total expenses from the total revenue.
- Format your spreadsheet using drop-down lists for categories and checkboxes for completed payments.
- For a better visual understanding, create a chart or graph by selecting the data you want to view (i.e., your monthly income and expenses).
- Click ‘Insert,’ then select the type of chart that best fits your data.
Google Sheets income and expense spreadsheet templates
As you can see, making an income and expense spreadsheet using the above method is possible.
However, this template offers limited functionality (unless you know your way around Google Sheets formulas and Google Apps Scripts).
I always recommend using a pre-formulated Google Sheets template as the springboard to track your income and expenses.
Trust me, this is a much more effective way to manage your finances!
These templates typically come with pre-populated functions, automatic calculations, customizable formatting options, and built-in charts and graphs.
Luckily, many Google Sheets income and expense spreadsheet templates are available, all ranging in functionality and versatility.
Some of my favorites are:
- The ‘Monthly budget’ and ‘Annual budget’ templates within the Google Sheets template gallery.
- SmartSheets various budget templates (including a specific income and expense template).
- Etsy’s range of paid income and expense templates (and other bookkeeping templates for teams looking for more).
- Sheetify Bookkeeping (complete accounting toolkit for small businesses).
What is a Google Sheets monthly budget template?
Similar to an income and expense spreadsheet, a monthly budget template tracker can help effectively manage your incomings and outgoings.
So, what’s the difference between the two?
- A monthly budget template operates as a flexible forecasting tool that you can adjust as needed for the upcoming month (or any chosen period).
- An income and expense statement simply records and analyzes already occurred financial transactions.
Both types of spreadsheets are complementary tools in effective financial management.
And the choice between them (or the decision to use both) depends on your specific business needs.
Best Google Sheets income and expense spreadsheet (Sheetify Bookkeeping)
Sheetify Bookkeeping is the most extensive Google Sheets income and expense spreadsheet on the market.
With dedicated ‘Income’ and ‘Expenses’ sheets, each with:
- Customizable headers.
- Conditional formatting.
- Data validation rules.
- Built-in Apps Script.
Sheetify Bookkeeping lets you track your finances with ease.
All you need to do is add your own income and expense values, and Sheetify Bookkeeping does the rest for you.
These sheets even come with a built-in tax calculator! Simply enter the amount and tax rate, and Sheetify automatically determines how much tax you need to pay.
Pretty awesome, right?
Sheetify Bookkeeping also calculates the total transaction amount, taxes, fees, and net amount for you (clearly displayed at the top of the sheet).
And if that wasn’t enough, for teams with thousands of transactions, the ‘Add new record’ feature eliminates the need to scroll to the bottom of your spreadsheet to add a new record.
You can also view your income and expense transactions in Sheetify Bookkeeping’s easy-to-use visual dashboards.
Made specifically for small and micro business owners, this awesome Google Sheets template is super affordable, costing you just $47.
This includes all current and future updates and features, plus access for up to 100 users.
Plus, if you buy Sheetify CRM and Sheetify Bookkeeping as a combo purchase, you’ll receive 15% off on both products.
As well as being the best income and expense spreadsheet template on the market, Sheetify Bookkeeping is also the best all-in-one Google Workspace accounting tool.
Learn more about Sheetify Bookkeeping here.
Thanks for reading!
