Hi. I’m considering tiller as a replacement for my manual process and wondering if anyone knows of existing templates or can help confirm the functionality I’m looking for is possible.
I have a Google sheet with columns for a few key incomes (mine, my wife’s) as well as a handful of expenses (basically all charges on my checking account like credit card bills and a few direct charges, mortgage, etc). Each row represents a single day and it’s basically a daily accounting of my checking balance, but in the future. I put future known transactions (paychecks, mortgage, car) several months into the future, and other monthly charges that vary like credit cards as I know what they will be a few weeks in advance. Then periodically I manually reconcile backwards so when the actual charges come in I adjust amounts if needed, and add others that were not forecast. This results in a view of what my checking account balance should be any day in the future and I can ensure I have enough there to cover planned expenses like credit card auto pay, etc.
do any templates offer similar functionality? Would the auto-match be able to assist reconciling actual transactions with projected ones I manually enter in the future? Any advice on how to achieve this?
Welcome @Scottluchetti - you could check out the solution called Scheduled Transactions made by @rhowell that projects balances for multiple accounts. I’ve been meaning to dig into it further for a similar purpose. It seems to automatically reconcile transactions like you were inquiring about. There’s also a Tiller community solution called Projected Balances sheet that you could check out. Hopefully these might help meet your goal or offer some inspiration and if not I’m sure what you’re seeking is possible with some modifications. Good luck!
Thanks, Kyle.
@Scottluchetti it sounds as if my Schedule Transactions would work well for you. Please ask me if you have any questions about setting it up – I haven’t had a chance to document it as well as I’d like.
My method has some manual steps that I have not yet automated, so I won’t go into all the specifics. But basically, I enter known future checking account transactions a month or two ahead directly into the Transactions sheet. When the actual transaction gets downloaded from the bank, I match it with the one I entered manually using the Reconcile community solution. This works extremely well.
To project future balances in my checking account, I use the Account Register community solution. It shows a checkbook-style register for selected accounts along with a running balance. This also works very well and lets me know if my account balance will go negative at some point in the future.
I make heavy use of conditional formatting in the Transactions and Account Register sheets to highlight future dates, manual transactions, and negative account balances in the register.
The manual part of my method involves a separate sheet that lists all my known recurring transactions (expenses and deposits). Currently I manually copy/paste them into the Transactions sheet, and update dates and amounts manually. I haven’t quite automated that part yet. There are some community solutions that seem to have similar functionality, but when I’ve looked at them there’s always something that doesn’t quite fit my mental model so I’m pursuing it my own way.
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