Budget spreadsheet overview

​If you ever tried a do it yourself project at home without the right tools, you know how frustrating this can be.  Think of personal finance as one big do-it-yourself project, if you don't have the right tools, it's going to be tough!  The average family has over a thousand transactions a year, it is next to impossible to make sense of all these transactions without the right tool.  When it comes to downloading these transactions, the first thing you realize is that your bank and credit card companies do not use the same format.  This is where xlyourfinances shines.  You can easily align and label your data with a few clicks.  Xlyourfinances already knows which transactions have been posted and which ones are ok to post and with one click remove the ones that were already posted.  Once posted, they now appear on the transactions tab where you can filter, sort, and edit all your data in one place.  Using the powerful autofilter in Excel, you can quickly find what you have posted, narrowing it down by description, date, or amount.  Everything gets accumulated into the summary tab.  You can easily see by financial account and category what you 've earned and spent over multiple years or by months within one year.

The toughest thing about budgeting is predicting the future.  This is made a little bit easier if you know what was spent in the past. xlyourfinances pulls the past 3 years to help you predict what you think will happen this year.  As you work down through the categories to make the changes you think are necessary.  You can drill down just by double clicking on any category.  This will show the expenses for any period and compare it to the budget for the same pro-rated period of time.

As the month progresses, you can see your actual spending beside your budget.  The budget is prorated by the number of days that have occurred in the month.  You can also compare how you are doing YTD.  The red, yellow or green lights are quick indicators of areas you are doing good or are having trouble in.

Now that you see how easy budgeting is now that you have all your transactions and historical data in one place, let's move on to the big picture.

If you ever sit down with a financial advisor, one of the first things they will do is make you put together a personal finance statement.  All it is, is a list of your assets and liabilities to determine your net worth.  Xlyourfinances allows you to add assets and liabilities and track them over the years to see if you are improving or not.  The importance of doing this is that when you are making mortgage payments you do not always see the benefit, but over time you can see that you are building equity and increasing your net worth.  So the big picture is to see how you're doing over the years to make sure you are achieving your goals.

Xlyourfinances makes it possible to truly maintain your personal finances in Excel.  Automated, customizable, personal finance spreadsheet features:  
Stores unlimited years | Unlimited financial accounts | Unlimited categories | Auto-labels transactions | One click removes duplicates from downloads | Easily reconciles to your financial accounts | Cash Forecast | Simplifies budgeting | Summary reports show actual vs. budget for any time period | Monthly and yearly summaries | Personal financial statement | Access to step-by-step video instructions | Free Upgrades!

xlyourfinances is the right tool for the job, I hope you give it a try.  Thank you!

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Once you start using it, you won't know how you ever maintained your finances without it.  If you have any questions about the spreadsheet, just send me an e-mail at xlyourfinances 'at' gmail 'dot' com and I will get back to you as soon as possible. 
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                                                                                                                                                Thank you,     
 
                                                                                                                                                                                    Brad Hoffer

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