Category Tracker(s!) Refresh

The Google Sheets Category Tracker has been our third-most-popular template historically with thousands upon thousands of downloads. The Category Tracker provides a quick & easy way to focus in on custom reporting periods.

In parallel, we had been refining a similar template in Excel called the Tiller Money Tracker. The Excel version included a popular pie chart feature, but lacked the category-rollup-by-description feature in the Sheets version.

We are excited to announce that we have merged these two concepts.


Category Tracker for Sheets :point_up:


Category Tracker for Excel :point_up:

The Sheets Category Tracker version, in an overdue update, now incorporates the customizable pie chart, a period summary, and features a UX similar to its Excel counterpart.

The new Excel build rebrands the template from “Excel Money Tracker” to the Excel “Category Tracker”— the same as its Sheets sibling— and harmonizes it with the popular features in the Sheets version, including the addition of Description totals (the columns at right) for the selected period.

Let us know what you think of the changes.

4 Likes

Randy
This is very interesting

I have multiple companies that I would like to summarize into a consolidated report.
Can this sheet drive it?
Drive P&L Reporting?
Thanks
Rob

I’m glad you’re intrigued, @facetnow100.

I’m not sure about your specific application, but I’d encourage you to pull in the worksheet, take it for a spin, and build whatever you need on top of it to make it work for you.

Randy

P.S. We have some great add-on-based and in-cell-formula-based P&L solutions on the Sheets side.

Thanks Randy, I like the look of this. I notice that the hidden categories are showing up in the report, is there a way to filter out certain categories from the report?

Yes. You can use the Hide column in the Categories sheet.

The categories I have identified as Hide in the Categories sheet are showing up in this report. I dont think its connected properly.

Example is this Rent Group should be hidden

image.png

Separately, would it be possible to add this graph to the Tags Report and then have a checkbox that we could select to control what is in the graph. That would be ideal.

Good catch on the Tracker, @CHILL. I just implemented a fix. A similar chart on the Tags Report would definitely be cool.

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@randy there appears to be a bug in the Income calculation =sumif($O$12:$O,$A6,$M$12:$M) in cell C6. The income number does not match my other sheets.

My guess is that the issue is that the SUM() formula is not filtering out categories that are hidden. It is confusing because, if there are hidden categories, the totals will not equal the values below.

Can you confirm, @hbwilliams22, that this is the root of the problem you are seeing? If yes, I can fix it later this week.

Thanks for catching this.
Randy

Just checked and can confirm this is the root of the problem. Thanks @randy

Just fixed this, @hbwilliams22. Upgrade the sheet and let me know what you think.

Appears to be working properly now. Thanks Randy

@randy I was excited about this update as soon as I saw this post, but I only just got around to trying out the new sheet. I love it! I’ve always found the Category Tracker very useful, but it’s always felt like a very basic tool. This new version really takes it to the next level. I don’t realize how much I would like having the pie chart, but it really helps visualize spending. Thanks!

Great to hear, @matt. Thanks for the feedback.
The pie chart was @heather’s idea.

1 Like

Actually, I can’t take credit for the pie chart idea. Customers ask for this ALL THE TIME! so thank our vocal customers :wink:

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I have two categories that have an apostrophe. When selected as the category on the right side, the period total is $0 and there are no transactions below. These same categories show the correct amount on the left side.

Thanks for letting us know @ssenneff! I’d recommend modifying the category to not include an apostrophe for now.

I assume you are having the apostrophe issue with the Google Sheets version, @ssenneff?

Can you use the Tiller Community Solutions Add-on to make sure you have the latest version (2.53)? I updated the Google template in late June to address that exact issue.

Hi. This is a great option to view an overall summary. I was interested in seeing these totals as a monthly view (mainly monthly expenses) so I copied the numbers down, and divided by the calculated number of months to today so I have 2 charts to view that are very helpful, the total expenses and monthly average expenses. Wondering if that would be useful for others enough to make it part of your work? Thanks.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing that idea, @Gypzie. What do you all think?