ULTIMATE Personal Budget & Interactive Dashboard in Excel (FREE Template)

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

❓What are your financial goals for this year?

[@rob4433]

Marry into money 💰😜

[@IamTheReaper911]

@@rob4433 lololololol ☝️

[@cici7739]

🤣👌🏼@@rob4433

[@julieodonoghue6902]

Not rely on the bank of Mum & Dad

[@MLSteenbjerg]

Get overview of income and expenses during 2024 because I retire mid year. This tutorial will help with that! (I've done Excel budget for many years but very manual and timeconsumming). I'll add a function and graph of withdrawing on my savings accounts/pension funds on a two-three decades overview. I am not sure how to organise or present the use of savings yet, but something with extending the budget to future years added with inflation. I would like to know what happens in economy when I either have to replace my car (every 8-10 years), or my spouse dies (loss of expenses and income). My pension funds get paid either lifelong or 10 years (when I say start) or a lump sum. I would be good to know if I can afford a new PC laptop to my new hobby in Amateur Astronomy Imaging (expensive hobby) or a PowerQuery cource with you eg. ;-) If you have any tips I would like to know?

[@simonar1]

This is not only the best budget spreadsheet I have seen, but the best step by step tutorials I have ever seen. You have gone out of your way to make the whole thing as simple as possible to understand. I have seen lots of these over the years and the vast majority of people make them too cumbersome to use and don't give proper explanations either

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wow, thank you! So pleased you liked it 😊🙏

[@FIRE_DrNinjaTurtle]

I absolutely love this budget worksheet. I have been customizing my spreadsheet for 10 to 15 years so I have to stay with that one, but I am also going to use this one for a big picture overview. I would suggest adding a savings rate area and a net worth area.

[@georgehadjichrysanthou4138]

I have seen a lot of videos on how to construct personal budgets to control your finances and this is by far the best one.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Awesome to hear, George! Thank you 😊

[@ErikBrown1000]

You already had the best personal finance dashboard with your previous iteration. This one is even better. And, you make it so user friendly with this fantastic, easy-to-follow tutorial that I've been able to add some customization. I replaced the income donut with a donut that shows mortgage information: equity, dynamic balance, and dynamic payoff date. Kudos to you, Mynda!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wow, that sounds great 😊

[@seymansey]

This is absolutely fantastic, I was sat here pondering creating something similar for 2024 and beyond and here is it. Thank you.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad it was helpful! 😊

[@frost1204]

I just finished watching your personal finance video from 2 years ago and it was really well made. Having this updated video is even more amazing. Thank you so much for all the effort, honestly it helps a lot

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wonderful to hear! 🙏

[@danielcardinale9025]

I am a retired manufacturing engineer three years now and really miss working with excel. I watched this video and it is mind blowing. Mynda, you are awesome! I am going to get right on this and create a new budget workbook. Thank you very much. I will be watching more of your videos and check out your online courses. Gotta keep my mind sharp right!!!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

That's wonderful to hear! And thanks for your kind words 😊

[@jking7045]

Mynda you are an international treasure!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@josiahfisher4791]

Bless you for making this! I don't know how many hours you just saved me--you are a godsend!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad I could help 😊

[@remuslupinhp]

I think people who get put off on hearing Power Query don't know what they are missing out on...this is fantastic work❤

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks so much!

[@garydunken7934]

Thanks Mynda for the template. One day, I wish we could use CDR Open Banking APIs to directly pull transaction data from various banks into this Excel template (perhaps using built-in Python magic), so we could seamlessly refresh bank transactions each time the Excel file is opened or on button trigger, rather than csv importing once a month, which I think is too longer time gap to reconcile.

[@MarkRizzoTheDragonWizard]

Mynda, I have been following you and your work for about a year now and I just wanted to chime in and tell you what I am sure many people have told you already and that is that you are a true Excel gem!. I love your videos, I have downloaded many of your cheat sheets and handouts and templates and now I am checking out this wonderful interactive budget with dashboard that I have been looking for to finalize my killer budget. I still have a very large learning curve with Excel, but you make it all worth learning it. Thank you so much for what you do.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wow, thanks for your kind words, Mark! Sincerely appreciated 🥰

[@David-TheDetailInitiative]

Great guide. Exactly what my wife and I were looking for to take our simple Excel budget to the next level. Well explained, well shown steps, very clear. My new favourite Excel website.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad it was helpful!

[@RafaelSilva-pj6og]

I've done something similar for my own finances this year. It's an excellent exercise in so many excel skills. My best suggestion would be to setup a table that maps descriptions to subcategories so that reoccurring transactions are automatically mapped. That way you only need to map the transactions with new descriptions.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great tip! Thanks for sharing 🙏

[@AntonioGonzalez-no2hk]

how would i go about doing that?

[@RafaelSilva-pj6og]

@AntonioGonzalez-no2hk make a table which contains the transaction description in one column and the corresponding categories in another column. You only need to do each description once. Then load it to PowerQuery and merge it to the transactions table. This will essentially do a Xlookup between the transaction table and the new table using the descriptions as the common factor. If you don't know about PowerQuery this is a great simple thing to get you introduced to it.

[@riccardovacca8717]

hi! beautiful tutorial, can we have the tutorial for savings cartel plz? thanks

[@eclipsenow5431]

I love how attractive it is - not as clunky and off-putting as so many spreadsheets. I will be sharing this around in various budgeting forums I've been visiting! One embarrassingly basic question - how do I rename the bank accounts? I know it's technically correct but "Checking" is not the name I'd choose with our bank setup.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Awesome to hear 🙏 when you enter your own bank transactions, the report will pick up the name of the bank accounts you enter in the transactions table 😉

[@al3xj]

A piece of art as always Mynda - and agree on comments before, the best budgetting spreadsheet and simple tool I've seen also and have been hunting last few months! Thanks as always

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Awesome to hear 🙏😊

[@AlainB1956]

Thank you for getting back to me promptly and for the proposed PFD... Cheers

[@rohanshaw1827]

Thank you so much for this video. I used it as a tutorial to develop my own version that fits my needs perfectly. Love you content!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great to hear!

[@wizardofaus8473]

Professional, informative, easy to follow instructions, as always Mynda. Thank you and Happy New Year!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you for watching and happy New Year 🥳

[@cici7739]

Bloody legend! Thanks so much for the beautiful, easy to use, and free excel sheet, as well as the best tutorial to along with it 🙏

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

So pleased you liked it 😊😁

[@joaorodrigues2781]

Hi. You are THE KZbin channel I go to to learn new additional features in MS Excel and I've seen a lot of your, and other channels, videos on personal expenses. But I would say almost all, if not all, only consider entire years. If I'm in, for example, June-2022, I would like to see my last 12 months and compare them to their previous 12 months (a 24 month comparison). How does one set time slides and Pivottables when one wants to choose the report on a specific month, say 3 months ago? Thank you so much for your wonderful work. The way you explain everything is just so clear!!! And love you use dd/mm/yyyy date format: it makes it SO obvious!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your kind words and support 🙏🥰 check out this post on rolling 12 month periods: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-slicers-for-rolling-periods

[@ianl1052]

Just watched the video and will create my own from scratch later. A few months ago, I watched another video on this exact topic. It was about 6 hours long and took me about a week to complete. As with everything in life, there are advantages and disadvantages with everything. The advantage with your method is the formulas are relatively easy. The disadvantage (if you can call it that) is it needs to be refreshed every month. Question. How does it look in future years? The advantage with the other method is it refreshes automatically as you go along. The disadvantage is that some of the formulas needed to achieve this are insane. The slightest error in creating the formula can involve hours of snagging even expanding the formula bar and using Alt+Enter to "split" the formula into the 7 or 8 lines. So, off for a cup of coffee for now. Looking forward to starting from scratch and creating my own. As usual, thanks for your time and effort in creating this video.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Awesome to hear. Hope it goes well. If you get stuck, you're welcome to post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@ianl1052]

​@MyOnlineTrainingHub Thanks, not anticipating any problems (just had to download 8 months of statements in slightly different formats because I recently switched banks). Nothing that a little hard work couldn't cure. If I do get stuck, there's always your template to fall back on if I need to. Certainly useful to compare formulas.

[@TheJoshtheboss]

Was searching to build exactly something like this the last few months. Perfection 👌.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks so much!

[@TheAndresOpeth]

This is simply beyond outstanding, I watched 22 minutes, and it is absolutely mind blowing. Definitely, I am going to purchase one of your courses, I can't still decide which one. I want to create a very nice dashboard like this one, I have several things going on my mind on how to make it work, since I use my credit card for daily expenses and I paid the with credit card monthly without causing interest, I also share the household with my wife, she transfers me money and I paid for everything. I know with your videos I can make it work, thanks Mynda!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wonderful to hear!🙏 Be sure to watch to the end 😁 I'd probably enter the money from your wife as a reduction to expenses, rather than income and the payment to your credit card is a balance sheet transaction that clears a debt, so not part of the Profit & Loss. If it's reports you want to build, I recommend my Excel Dashboard course: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-dashboard-course

[@TheAndresOpeth]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub That's the one I was thinking of yesterday, I am going to go with that one. Thanks for replying to me and the tips. You're awesome, genius and dedicated🤗

[@bobkornz1]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub Hi Mynda, fantastic work! I have been trying to use YNAB, and frankly, I still feel blind. This is clean, and comprehensive, and I'm an excel guy, so I want to adopt this going forward. I am confused about how to handle credit card transactions. I see in Transactions where to add CC transactions as a Credit Account, but how do you add payments? Simply as a Debit from Checking? What do you Categorize it as? I am unclear what you mean above when you say "the payment to your credit card is a balance sheet transaction that clears a debt, so not part of the Profit & Loss." Regarding CC debt (or any loan debt), do you have an add-on sheet to track that as well? I'm going to get started as is, leaving these off for now, but getting some clarity on the above would be incredibly helpful. Thx!!

[@ランナー-z9b]

Hey thank you so much for this video ! I am a student trying to figure out how to manage my finances and I needed a budget spreadsheet that I could customise to my likings ! Very grateful for this, thank you :)

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad it was helpful!

[@shireengool]

This is the first time I come across one of your videos. Where have you been all my life? I have a lot of catching up to do. You are amazing

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Wow, thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed my video and hope you find more that are helpful to you 😊🙏

[@sammyapsel1443]

Nice video. Couple of questions: 1. If I have multiple checking accounts, how would you suggest recording a transaction from one account to another? The money hasn’t been spent obviously , but just moved from one place to another. 2. Consider the following situation: suppose in January I go to see a movie with 3 other friends and suppose a ticket costs 10 usd and that I paid for the whole group, meaning I paid 40 usd. Suppose my nice friends pay me back 2 months later only(meaning in March, I receive back 30 usd), how would you record such an activity? If I record it as I paid 40 usd for the ‘entertainment’ category, this won’t be accurate since I’ve only spent an actual 10, so how do you tackle this problem? 3. A similar situation: suppose I’m renting an apartment with 2 roommates and that every 3 months someone else pays for the house rent which suppose is 3000 USD. Meaning in Jan I’ll pay 3000 usd, and in April again, and so on… , how would you suggest recording such an activity? 4. Follow-up question for the previous situation: suppose now, we decide to split the bills in the following way: roommate A pays the internet bill , and roommate B pays for the electricity bill, how would you suggest recording the correct spending activities for every individual? 5. Last question: suppose I want to break up my spending categories into 3 bigger categories namely: fundamentals,fun, and savings and show reports for them.(meaning classifying the sub-categories into these 3 bigger categories) How can you do that?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

1. tag it as a transfer and omit 'transfers' from your reports. 2-4. as an accountant you would enter an accrual to represent the money your friends owe you in the period it relates to. The other side of the accrual goes to a debtor account on your balance sheet and when your friends pay you, you enter the payment received against the debtor account to clear their debt to you. You could set up another table to represent your balance sheet debtors accounts so you can monitor them, but balancing things could get messy without a proper accounting system ensuring your double entry bookkeeping is correct. 5. Add another column to the categories table for the upper categories.

[@ssomtom]

Fantastic. But How can I build it with just a personal Office license to not depend on my actual workplace's bussiness licence. How can I share this with my family members? I dont want to send them xlsx files at all...

[@betzabesuazo9784]

This is honestly the best thing I could have found! I was trying to look for some sort of budget template and this one was the best, thank you!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You're so welcome! 😊

[@marianagomes7471]

Brilliant! What a nice way to start my year more organised.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

So pleased you can make use of it 😊

[@HENRY1964PORTUGAL]

Excellent job, Mynda, as usual, and extremely important for the beginning of this year. Every year I make a budget, but with this tutorial and your template I will have a very effective tool to be able to monitor all expenses and income on a monthly basis. Thank you very, very much and have a great new year.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your support, Henry! It's great to hear you budget every year. Awesome discipline!

[@AnthonyBlake-zh3bw]

All of these tutorials are awesome! We're all lucky they are available on KZbin! I have one question please: when I import my bank transaction data, the transaction description is split across 2 or 3 rows most of the time, but not all, and the'useful bit' is not always in the same position (sometimes the first row, sometimes the second etc). However, the date and amount are always in line with the first row. Do you have any advice for automating cleaning this up please? I know there are techniques for merging columns of text into a row but I've only seen manual methods. If you have any tips or tricks for speeding this up or automating it I would be very grateful!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great to hear, Anthony! I'd use Power Query to clean your banking data. If you get stuck, you're welcome to post your question and sample Excel file containing dummy data on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@barttitulaerexcelbart9400]

Wow Mynda! this must be a lot of work, creating this file and tutorial. thumbs up for you. This was excellent, but you also could have added a small kind of liquidity plan: your bank account ant the upcomming payments and receivings, so you know you are (or are not) running out of cash....

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Yes, a cash flow report would be a nice addition. Good idea. Fortunately, there's always something more that can be done 😁

[@sseemm]

Thank you Mynda for this Tutorial. I LOVE IT ❤❤❤❤🙏🙏 One tiny tiny remark: Some Expenses at the top don't match with the table below (Living, Dining out, and Discretionary)

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks so much! Oops! Thankfully the headline figures in the completed file that you can download match.

[@christopherrenfro9520]

Really awesome budget tracker! Question about the transaction table. I’m entering in my bank statements. I notice there’s no where to enter in the total amounts in each account or the beginning balances? How or where do you put in the beginning balances so that the spreadsheet knows actual amounts?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You can enter the opening balance with an account category that is 'not reported' or similar and then exclude these values from your reporting.

[@stevenclark1243]

I spent quite a while trying to make a cumulative chart not reset on the new year as yours seemed to do on the savings sheet. Then I realized it doesn't, it just looks like it does because the Jan saved is larger than for Dec. 😋I want to do something slightly different so will work around it. Thanks for the great content, I always learn something.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad you found it helpful 😊🙏

[@Timkalvoda]

Another GREAT tutorial from the GOAT of EXCEL. Many thanks for providing another educational video on "How To." Mynda, do you think it would be worthwhile developing a comparison follow-on video that creates the dashboard using Power BI vice Excel? All the best to you and your team!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your kind words 🙏😊 interesting suggestion. Maybe not for this video as it’s aimed at personal use, so not many people will want to pay for Power BI for this. But maybe for other examples. 👍

[@rkdaltry2022]

Thank you so much for continuing to present practical Excel solutions...much appreciated.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

🙏 So glad it was helpful!

[@jawadahmadehssan6251]

Great timing and with no doubt great content. Thanks alot Minda and happy new year.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your support! Happy new year to you too 😊

[@jeremielachance4811]

I am using the free download template (Thank you so much for that!). On the budget tab, every tme I change or add a number to the table I get an "Inconsistent calculated column formula" error. Will this cause problems with the report, or can the error be ignored? Thank you

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

No, you can just ignore this error. This is because tables are expecting the formulas in each cell of a column to be the same, but we are using the table in a horizontal layout with the formula the same for each row. It won't cause any issues to use it this way.

[@soniashah4744]

What’s the best way to document the transaction of paying off your credit card bill? Is that a subcategory that should be added or what is the best approach?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

That's a transfer from your bank to your credit card. It shouldn't be included in your report because you've already accounted for those amounts in the transactions. You can just tag it with a new category type called 'Transfer' and exclude this from your Profit & Loss.

[@avishekmukherjee8682]

Hi...Thanks for this great tutorial... Need 1 advice: Say i transfer balance between my accounts.How do i reflect that. Example: I transferred 4k from my account to my wallet. And used cash for multiple expenses...How to cater that. Hope i am able to explain it

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

In the Transactions list the Description will be 'Transfer to xyz account' and the Sub-category will be 'Transfer'. For cash you will 'Transfer' money from say your 'Saving' account to your 'Cash' account. Then when you spend cash, the account will be 'Cash'. You'll also want to exclude the 'Transfer' Sub-category from your report.

[@evertondel]

I did something like this a few years ago, but, this takes it to another level, thank you very much.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad you liked it! 🙏😊

[@louispegg8801]

Such a helpful tool, thanks so much. Bit of an excel noob so hoping someone will be able to help me figure out a couple of things now I've been through the process of adding my categories, budget and transctions: 1) For each cell in my budget where I've added data, there's a green triangle in the top left hand corner. Everything seems to work fine otherwise. 2) In the Variance column for the income section of the P&L statment, I just have a row of ##### - any ideas? 3) Is there a way to change the currency throughout the spreadsheet that won't risk screwing up all of the infrastructure? Thanks in advance!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great to hear! 1. ignore the green triangle. It just means that the formulas in the column are not the same, which is fine for the budget. 2. try making the column wider to display the contents of the cell 3. you can change the currency. It's just formatting.

[@cromerojr]

This is amazing! The template I downloaded also includes a Savings tab which is not mentioned in the video. Just need to clear some 2023 filters and add Jan to Dec 2024.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Have fun with it! 😁

[@kgadeberg]

As always. at least a couple of things I have been doing in a more complicated manner until now. Thank you.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

So glad you can make use of these techniques.

[@andrijanakrcmar7470]

This spreadsheet is amazing! Thank you so much! Can you please tell me if there is a way to change the currency. Thanks in advance! :)

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

The currency is just a number format, so you can make it anything you want via the Home tab > number formats. 😊

[@meldoyle1476]

I'm a newbie at excel, haven't used it in at least 20 years. Would you suggest to try and build one from scratch or edit yours with my information? Also, if I add categories, and then more sub-categories to your existing chart on the categories sheet, will those changes be reflected across the rest of the sheets and 'talk' to each other? Thanks so much

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Yes, you can add more categories and subcategories and my file will automatically include them, so it's up to you whether you start from scratch or modify my file, but it's probably easier to modify my file.

[@ricseeds4835]

My only quibble with this is that the profit and loss pivot table is cumulative up to the current month. I'd like to see what each month looks like.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You can add the month and year fields to the column labels.

[@1johnky]

Hi, love your video and learning a lot of excel. could we run this financial tracker for tax year period and should I go about doing it. My tax year run from 1 of April to 31 of March

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sure. Add a column to classify the dates into your fiscal periods and then use that field in your reports. You'll have to modify the queries. It's too much to explain in the comments here, sorry.

[@jm0881]

This tutorial is great! I have a question about sinking funds. I budget for discretionary expenses each month into sinking funds (clothes, vacation, medical, etc). For example, I transfer $300 into a clothing sinking fund each month. If I spend $50 on clothes from my main checking account, I transfer $50 from my clothing account back into my main checking. The remaining $250 stays in the sinking fund. What would the reporting category look like for transactions such as this?

[@jm0881]

Would it be sub-category "clothes"; category-type "Expense" for the initial $300 and the same for the $50 purchase. Then what does the transfer of $50 look like once it is transferred back into the main checking account?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Assuming you only want to track actual spend in your personal Profit & Loss statement, I would track the $300 debit transfer as a savings sub-category e.g. 'Sinking Fund - Clothing' that is not included in the P&L i.e. Category Type: Balance Sheet. Then when you spend the $50, it is entered as a debit on sub-category 'Clothing' that is included in the P&L and the transfer back from the sinking fund to your checking account is entered as a credit against the Sinking Fund - Clothing sub-category.

[@jm0881]

@MyOnlineTrainingHub Yes! Thank you! I will try doing it this way.

[@jm0881]

@MyOnlineTrainingHub I just want to make sure I am setting this up correctly: 1. initial $300: sub-category "Sinking Fund - Clothing"; Category "Savings"; Category Type "Balance Sheet 2. spent $50: sub-category "Clothing"; Category "Discretionary"; Category "Expense" 3. transfer $50 from the sinking fund back to checking: sub-category "Sinking Fund - Clothing"; Category "Savings"; Category Type "Credit" I would have the following category types: income, expense, balance sheet, and credit?

[@Jack199ws]

Thank you so much for putting this together, Mynda! I'm really new to Excel and seeing you walk step by step through this has helped me enormously! I downloaded your free template and have been trying to get it to look like yours but with of course my own data. I've been going through the tabs, starting with the Categories tab, then the Budget and have now completed entering all my own transactions for the month of January'24 in the Transactions tab. But when I refresh the data in the "Reports" tab the charts look all wrong. Is it because I've skipped the "Power Query Editor" section? I can only assume so! Will have to pluck up the courage to go to that step next! Thanks again for your time and for being such a saint to us beginners!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great to hear, Jack! Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@lindaclark7499]

I need a video to forecast budget for upcoming year using past three years separated by month and actual doses.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Check out the Excel Forecast sheet tool: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forecast-sheet

[@VipinVij-j2y]

Happy New Year, Mynda. This is an excellent video, as always. I saw your previous version of the Budget Dashboard, but this one is more refined, and using PowerBi makes more sense.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

I was aiming to improve on my previous personal finance dashboard, so I'm glad you noticed 😁

[@shanecunningham4579]

Absolutely love this spreadsheet and your easy to follow instructional videos. I have used Mint for many years and I'm sure like most of us, I was scrambling to find an alternative when they decided to discontinue it. Is it possible to rollover budget surplus or deficit amounts to the next month's budget? Can you please provide some direction?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad it was helpful! You can keep a running total of the surplus/deficit, but it's not trivial to explain how and largely depends on where you want to see it. You're welcome to post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@chrism9037]

Happy New Year Mynda! This is excellent, thank you. Gives me some ideas for my own budget tracker that I've been using for years

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad to read that 😊

[@DeborahGeyer]

Thank you, Mynda! This is a great template and tutorial. I am having trouble with Step 4 though. When I click on refresh data I get an error message [Dataformat.error] we couldn't convert to number. I went back to the transactions sheet and removed text that was in the currency columns and made sure all of the columns were formatted correctly, text or currency. But that did not fix the problem. Have I done something wrong?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sounds like you still have text where it's expecting a number.

[@gaila.8830]

Wow thank you SOOOOO much for sharing this valuable information 😊 Can't wait to learn more from your channel 😊 Thanks

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You're so welcome! 😊

[@reshallyatooma7625]

Hi! First, thank you so much for sharing this. I am in the process of building this for myself and this is awesome! My question to you is at 13:29 mark, how do you get the sum of the budget to populate in the table for each line item? My budgeted items are currently sitting in one line item and not allocated across all the categories. Thank you so much in advance!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You need to enter your budget amounts in the Budget table as per the example file. Power Query will then do the conversion of the budget table so it feeds the PivotTable correctly. If you're still stuck, you're welcome to post your question and Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@reshallyatooma7625]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub Thank you so much for the feedback! I will go back to the budget amounts in the budget table and review/correct. I will also post the question to the forum too.

[@firmaevents9594]

Hello Tracey, i saw your courses 9n your website. I came across a finane course which iam super exicted to take it. I have a small question. Do by end of this course, will.i be able to do financial statements on excel or this course is just to learn the fundamentals

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your interest in my courses. Please reach out via email and let me know which course you're referring to: website at MyOnlineTrainingHub.com

[@AlainB1956]

Hello, I'm having problems generating the PP&L Pivot Table from external data source... Firstly, you need to know that I'm using Microsoft 365 for Mac. When I select Choose Connection I do not see my queries that I have created earlier. That said am I missing a step or is it simply because I'm using the Mac version of Excel. Thank you in advance for your assistance. BTW superb template... Cheers

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Mac is the issue, sorry. The queries won't run on Excel for Mac...yet. Maybe this personal finance dashboard will suit you better: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4PXeYGnlsuonMk

[@stefankleinhans4895]

Hi, I have created a budget based on your previous video's and it been working Great!!. However I always like to upgrade and improve. I am struggling to display the transactions linked to the category for the period selected. Meaning, For February I Spend 100 on Takeout's but where, so a short descriptive Section on the side would help understand instead of jumping back to the transactions sheet and start filtering. And as you select your period and category then the data changes as per what is logged in your transactions table. I Know how to do it in Power BI as it would be simple. But How do I go about this in excel. Just taking a shot here to ask you.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great to know you're making use of these techniques. Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@jimmyPOUFAJones]

This makes the one I set up a couple of years ago look like primary school.........thank you!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

😁 thanks for watching!

[@LindaB.-ht4he]

Thank you for this. I have been watching all sorts of videos on how to do a budget tracker. This version is the best for me and I am already benefiting from it. I just turned 65 and it's about time! The Bonus Savings Tracker that you mention in the beginning is also very attractive. Is that still available? Can you direct me to find it? Thanks again - :)

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad it was helpful! The savings tracker is included in the file you can download from our site. The link is in the video description.

[@MirkaKrovina]

Hello, first of all, congratulations because your tutorial videos are awasome. I really like the way that all is explain and show. The second is a question regarding power query. I have done all your steps in the same way, and I also saw that in your video the budget amounts have a "null". My problem is that the budget values are not showing in the pivot table, or shows are grouped in a blank category. How do you fix this? I am not very familiar with Power Query but looking foward to learn more about it.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@Mylandmas]

Thank you for sharing this great video! Using it to track my expenses. Only challenge I am having is the doubling of the budget figures on the P&L report figures. Does anyone know how to go round this?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sounds like you might be loading the data to the worksheet instead of keeping it as a connection only.

[@Mylandmas]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub feedback is appreciated. I'm doing all the updates on the transactions worksheet.All the other worksheets update upon clicking the refresh icon.Noticed that even the worksheets you shared for this video is also doubling bydget figures.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

In the file you can download from the link in the video description you'll see my budget isn't being doubled. If you look at the Personal Profit and Loss statement on the Report page you'll see it reconciles to the Budget table figures.

[@Mylandmas]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub You are very right 🙆‍♂.I seem to have followed all the steps. Just cant figure out why my figures are doubling. Thank you.

[@billgyrotech]

Hi could you incorporate debt payoff with the budget? I was thinking with any left over money each month to maybe be debt free one day. Thank you for all of your efforts.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great idea!

[@billgyrotech]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub I only have the idea but do not know how to make it work. Could you perhaps make a video?

[@martinbaker8581]

Thank you, Mynda, for your brilliant work. Do you have much use for Sankey diagrams in budgeting and finance, or are they more gimmicky? I couldn't find anything Sankey related on your channel.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thanks for your kind words 😊 I don’t find a lot of use for Sankey diagrams. They’re useful for showing the movement of data from one point to the next.

[@bauer401]

Hi! This is a game changer, thank you! Do you have a tutorial for the savings tab? When I try to create it the pivot table isnt picking up the month and year from the "monthly savings amount" list.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad you like it! I didn't do a video for the savings tab but there are notes on that tab as to how to use it. It's very straight forward. Just enter your data in the table and press Refresh All on the Data tab of the ribbon. If you're stuck, please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@Fjollefs1]

It would be helpful to add the Category in the Transactions table - how do I do this? Reason is for using a slicer on categories and expanding the analysis further.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sure, you can add a lookup formula (XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP) to find the sub-category in the Categories table and return the category. e.g. =XLOOKUP([@[Sub-category]],TblCategories[Sub-category],TblCategories[Category])

[@Fjollefs1]

I have already tried that, but that leaves me with the error "[Expression.Error] The field 'Category' already exists in the record". @@MyOnlineTrainingHub

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sounds like you're doing this in Power Query instead of the Table in the Excel worksheet. Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@bernardbouree3997]

Hello, thank you very much for this amazing template. I dind't found the way to update the sub-category slicer in the Transactions sheet when they were changed in the Categories sheet.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

If refreshing all (data tab) doesn't work, then try deleting the Slicer and inserting it again.

[@bernardbouree3997]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub indeed the refreshing all does not work. Thanks

[@waterflow24]

Hi there, I've downloaded the file and the saving tab (spreadsheet) was not included in the tut video up here and first I'm a bit confused as to the difference between checking, savings and credit on transactions are there for and, second how to navigate through the aofrementioned saving tab. Can you please enlighten me ?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

The savings tab is a bonus report. The data that feeds the PivotTables and charts is in the Table under the 'Input' heading on row 24. The PivotTables that feed the charts are under the Analysis heading. Select cell A1 for instructions.

[@ebelfezl5809]

Thank you very much for your valuable information I want to know how can I make a perfect project using excell? How can I sell on Etsy if I make a project?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

I recommend you research what is already selling well on Etsy and see if you can make better versions of those templates.

[@jorgeruiz9412]

I am using Excel in a Mac. It is version 16.82 and the licenses is Microsoft 365 Subscription. I downloaded the template and it works fine. But when I tried to create my own, I discovered Power Query has less functionality: I can't choose a data source from within the spreadsheet; it has to be from an external source. When I choose Excel file as the source and I go to choose the file, the file I am working in is greyed out and is not available for choosing. I guess I have to modify the template being careful not to break it.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Yes, I’m afraid Excel for Mac doesn’t have full Power Query functionality yet.

[@DarkoIvanovic-z4v]

Wow, this is exactly what I was imagining in my dream imagination. And I really want to use is. But I have a little bit trouble. When I change something in the Budget table I get a Warning about inconsistency. And when Deleting a row and creating a new one, I get a #REF error for each month. You know what that could be ? Cheers

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You can ignore the inconsistency warning in the budget table. The #REF! error is caused when you delete a cell that a formula was referring to. You'll have to edit the formula to correct the missing cell reference.

[@DarkoIvanovic-z4v]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub Okay. But I just downloaded your .csv file and didn't delete anything. I just wanted to change/add budget and then I got the #REF error. Where could this come from? Or do I need to build the whole sheet by myself? BR

[@domonkoshorvath4300]

Is it possible to create this or at least something similar in google sheets, so I could check and update it on the go?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Not that I know of. Sheets doesn't connect to external sources AFAIK.

[@IsabellaClair-l7w]

Hi Brenda, Thank you for explaining of the budget spreadsheet. I do have a question though, how would you do a visual of the top 5 sub-category's expenses in this budget spreadsheet?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

I'd put them in a bar chart 😉or if you wanted to visualise them over time, then a line chart would probably be ok.

[@IsabellaClair-l7w]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub Oh thanks for the advice!

[@user-JJJenkins]

LOVE this! So very helpful and useful. I'm curious how best to expand on this to not only record these various transactions from multiple accounts but also capture across multiple institutions. Your thoughts?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you! You could add a column to your transactions and budget tables for the institution and then add that as a Slicer in the report so you can see one institution at a time.

[@kelvinautomates]

This looks great, would this work on google sheet?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you! No, not available for Sheets because it doesn't have Power Query. You could try this one instead: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4PXeYGnlsuonMk

[@BjjUnited87]

How would you take into account 401k and HSA savings as pre-tax deductions from your salary? Do you account for these as an expense even though they are going into two separate savings accounts?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

you could enter the gross amount and then add another transaction with the deduction.

[@nikhilgitay8578]

Hi, Thank you for this template. It is a great guide to create your own personal financial dashboard board. I have a question regarding the timeline slicer, I want the slicer to only show a particular date range. For example- just from April 2023- March 2024. how can I do that? My tables only have data from April 2023, but in the timeline slicer I am getting data from January 2023. How can I get this custom date range? Thanks.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you! The timeline slicer always shows complete years.

[@bckyrdprojctsironmicrecord3734]

Hello Mynda, Love this as it's a very insightful goal planner🙂however I'm struggling with the pivot, because I have blanks seeing that the power query is not reading the budget categories when I load the pivot resulting data not showing under the budget column in the pivot instead blanks that have all the budget figures. Please advise🙌🤲

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Blanks in your budget shouldn't be an issue. I guess it's not clear where they are. Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@bckyrdprojctsironmicrecord3734]

Okay will do, thanks for the prompt reply, much appreciated☺

[@allark9650]

This is a wonderful budget until I got adding PivotTable from external source. I have a MacBookAir and it says " Microsoft Excel cannot complete this operation because the ODBC Driver Manager is not installed. To install the ODBC Driver Manager, run Setup and install the database driver for the type of database(s) you want to access." when you try to go to Microsoft and do that it's a paid version and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to download an extra app or what is it that I need to do. Yes, I am totally new to excel and it's taking me longer than I thought but I hope I can find a way.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Unfortunately, Power Query on the Mac is not fully developed yet. One limitation is that you can't currently get data from the current file, so you'd have to move all the data to an external file. It may be easier to try this personal finance dashboard instead: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4PXeYGnlsuonMk

[@billgyrotech]

Hello, would it be possible to make this workbook without pivot tables? I find it cumbersome to refresh data. Thank you kindly for your outstanding efforts.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Sure, you can use formulas 👍

[@billgyrotech]

May I ask for help on how to do this please?@@MyOnlineTrainingHub

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@agilguliyev]

Can we automate the transaction part, so it is automatically tagged with subcategory based on our initial mapping. If there is new unusual transaction, it could alert us to map?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You can automatically tag categories from subcategories, but it wouldn't know which subcategory to apply based on a category. If you had a lookup table that mapped transaction descriptions to subcategories, then you could use that to apply the mapping.

[@aamirrangrej2309]

thankyou so much i feel over the moon when i see yours videos

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Aw, thanks so much 🥰

[@firmaevents9594]

To begin with. I love you. Second of all put the link of ur website in the about sectioj since i noticed that u gave course which of course iam going to buy some. I love the way you teach execl❤

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Glad you're enjoying my videos! The link to our site is in the channel description, but here it is again for your convenience: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/ Please reach out via email if you have any questions as I won't see follow-up comments on this thread: website at MyOnlineTrainingHub.com

[@MGA19a]

Hi and big thank you for great content again. One question though - when combining tables in PQ would the solution where you connect tables and load them to datamodel and have power pivot afterwards to create reports later also work and be less „cluttered“ ?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You're welcome. You can use Power Pivot, but it wouldn't be less cluttered as such. It would just load the data to the Power Pivot data model instead of the Pivot cache. Both are held in Excel's memory rather than the worksheet.

[@dineshr4472]

Mynda thank you so much for your efforts. how to prepare excel with daily schedule,weekly plan,to-do list,smart calender-task tracker like a Google sheet ?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You're welcome! I'll keep your request in mind for future videos.

[@ShaistaH-d4o]

This is amazing! Would love a dashboard that tracks multiple home loans 😊

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Great idea!

[@giacomotittonel]

Good evening! I have one question about Excel versatility. If I have a MacBook, does Excel work with Mac OS in the same way it does for Windows? Does it have all the functions? Thank you for your time and great job on your channel I love your content.

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

The short answer is no! Excel for Mac is getting closer to Excel for windows but it still falls behind with Power Query (very limited functionality) and Power Pivot (non existent). If you need these tools then use Parallels or similar to run a windows virtual machine on your Mac.

[@giacomotittonel]

@@MyOnlineTrainingHub thank you very much for your answer, it is a shame really to not have the possibility to do the functions your are showing here on a Mac.

[@tracy55555]

I am a little confused (bear with me as this is the first time using a budget Excel sheet). Is this free template already formatted? Or do I need to do all things things in the video?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You can download the completed version from the link in the video description.

[@saltorres9965]

I am having trouble downloading the excel spreadsheet. Do you have n easier link without a 1000 ads on it? Thanks

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

You're welcome to reach out via email and we can send the file. Note: you can't use the file on a phone (which I presume is where you're trying to download it to given your ads comment). If you go to the link on a PC the ads shouldn't cause you any issues, but by all means reach out via email if it's easier: website at MyOnlineTrainingHub.com

[@Centrus668]

Thank you for this video, can I change the language to my own language, if so is there a formula I must change for this

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Excel will automatically change the language for the functions and formulas etc. to that of your PC upon opening the file.

[@reggieking6576]

Great video! How would you go about splitting a transaction between multiple budget categories?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you! If the transaction relates to two categories, then enter the amounts on separate lines with the different categories, so that the two amounts add up to the one transaction in your bank account.

[@ashibrahim616]

awesome video🙏🙏 sorry for the silly or repeat question! is there a google sheet version of this?

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

No, Google Sheets doesn't have Power Query or an equivalent, so you'd need to use Excel for this spreadsheet. If you don't have Excel, you can try this Personal Finance Dashboard instead: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4PXeYGnlsuonMk

[@Ashiquei]

Ok fair enough ... Makes sense Thanks you

[@nkolev86]

Hey there, i am trying to create from scratch that template and i have the following problem: When i append budget and transactions, the power query brings 2 columns Sub-Categories (one from transaction table and another one from budget table). Later on when i am preparing the pivot table with expenses i can't match the amounts for the subcategories in both tables. I have noticed in your video that when you do the append step, your power query doesn't transfer second sub-category column. I am using Excel 2016 and i am not sure if this is a bug in that version or i am doing something wrong?! Thanks! 🤔

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Please post your question and sample Excel file on our forum where someone can help you further: www.myonlinetraininghub.com/excel-forum

[@ZeroWoe]

Thank you for this amazing template! Happy new year!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Thank you! 😊

[@tracy55555]

I have made my changes to the categories sheet, but it did not change them on the rest of the sheets. How do I update that so all the sheets have the correct categories? Thank you!

[@MyOnlineTrainingHub]

Have you pressed the Refresh All button on the Data tab of the ribbon?