Expenses and Paycheck Dashboard

[alan.heatherley]

Overview

I’ve hesitated to share this dashboard because it seems so particular to my own circumstances, but maybe someone else would find this useful. This dashboard groups scheduled expenses based on which paycheck they’re expected to be paid from, and gives you a chart to show how the account is predicted to perform over the next few weeks or months.

This dashboard is built on a prior worksheet I published here (🏆 Expense Forecasting and seeing upcoming expenses on a Calendar - UPDATED 4/15/24), so follow those instructions to install the base expense scheduling worksheet. This is critical for the dashboard to function.

To get the most out of this dashboard, you should be paying the majority of your bills from the same account you get your regular paycheck in. Also, I use an ultrawide monitor, so the dashboard is really wide.

Installation

Download the template from here (link)

To install the required sheets:

1. Open both the Dashboard spreadsheet and your Tiller worksheet
2. Right-click the name of the two worksheets in the Dashboard spreadsheet named Dashboard and Past & Predicted Balances. Select Move or Copy, and select your Tiller spreadsheet from the drop down list.
3. In your Tiller spreadsheet, move to the Data tab and click Workbook Links. This will open a window on the right.
4. Click the three dots to the right of the entry for Excel-Dashboard-Tiller, and select Move links. Select your Tiller spreadsheet and click OK.

Setup

Before configuring the dashboard sheet, you need to select the accounts to track by filling in the Past & Predicted Balances worksheet:

Column S shows all accounts from the Accounts sheet that aren’t Hidden. In G2-Q2, select an account for that column. These columns will calculate the balance at the end of the day indicated in column E. For dates in the past, the balance is based on the Transactions table, and for dates in the future, it uses the calculated expenses from the Expenses sheet. If the entire history of that account is in the Transactions table, the balance should be correct. If the Transactions table doesn’t have the entire account history, use row 1 to set the starting balance.

Move to the Dashboard sheet:

• AC1 - the account that your paycheck is deposited into
• AC2 - (optional) the category of your paycheck (if you leave this blank the next option shows all configured expenses instead of just the one that matches the category)
• AC3 - the expense that represents your paycheck
• AC4 - how far into the future you want the chart to show predicted balances
• AC5 - how far into the past you want the chart to show historical balances
• AC6 - besides the main account selected above, this dashboard has a section for expenses assigned to other accounts. This option defines how far into the future this Look Ahead section shows expenses

The next section is for credit card accounts, and is optional. Select the account and set the credit limit. This is used in the Look Ahead section to calculate the remaining credit available for these accounts.

Usage

Top left of the dashboard:

• Rows 1-12: About half of my accounts are manually updated, so this sections alerts me if I go too long before updating an account.
• Rows 17-21: Pretty self-explanatory. If there were expenses left to pay before the next paycheck, the sum of them would be in D20, but in this screenshot there are none, so it’s 0.
• Rows 23+: All expenses due before the next paycheck. There are none in this screenshot, so it’s empty

Top center of the dashboard:

• The vertical blue line represents today
• This is every account selected on the Past & Predicted Balances sheet

Bottom center of the dashboard:

• These are the next three paychecks and the expenses due to be paid out of them.
• Typically the first item in the list will be the paycheck
• The last row is the total left over after paying the expenses

Right side of the dashboard:

• Columns U-W are the Look Ahead section
  • This shows all of the accounts selected in the Past & Predicted Balances sheet
  • The heading of each Account Section has:
    • Column U: Account name
    • Column V: Current balance for today
    • Column W: If it’s a credit card, it shows the available credit for that account
  • After the heading is all of the expenses scheduled for that account in the next X days
• Columns Y-Z are a summary of all future paychecks
  • The Left Over column is the sum of all paychecks and expenses between the specific paycheck date and the next one
  • I use this section for an overview of trends in my scheduled expenses and paychecks, and trying to decide where certain discretionary spending should be scheduled

Permissions

Is it ok for others to copy, use, and modify your workflow?

• Please do!