🏆 Small Asset Tracker

Google Sheets Show & Tell
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1

What is the goal of your workflow? What problem does it solve, or how does it help you?
I often resell items I’ve purchased when I no longer need it, or have upgraded to a better version. Because of this, I tend to see the embedded value in some of my assets, and I’d like to be able to track that value as part of my Net Worth. After all, I could sell many of my assets, converting them to cash, which would then clearly be part of my Net Worth.

How did you come up with the idea for your workflow?
I previously released a template for doing this here. This is a cleaned up “Refreshed” version.

Please describe your workflow. What are the sheets? Does it use any custom scripts or formulas?
On your Transactions sheet, click the header for your “Amount” column to select it, then right-click it and choose “Insert 1 Column Right”. Title the new column “Value”. Click the header for the “Value” column to select it, then click the ‘$’ button in the toolbar to format it as currency.

Find a couple transactions that are for items that will retain some value over time. In the “Value” column for each of those items, type the amount of money you think you could sell that item for (it’s current “value”) as a positive number.

Click the link to the template below and copy the sheet to your Foundation template. Right-click the sheet name and change it to “Small Assets”. In the “Combined Small Assets” list on that sheet, you should now see a list of the items you added a “Value” to, and you’ll see the total “Cost” and “Value” listed at the top. If you add a manual account in Tiller, and call it “Small Assets”, you can add this value to it, so your small assets will be included in your Net Worth!

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This works great for anything new that you purchase and have a transaction for, but what about those items you got before you started with Tiller, or items you got as gifts or you built yourself? For those, notice on the top right corner of the Small Assets sheet a sideways heading that says “Add Manual Assets”, and points at a “+” above column “H”. Click the “+” and it will expand, showing you a “Manually Entered Assets” list. Add the info for any items you’d like to include in your Net Worth calculation. If there isn’t a “Cost” (eg. You got it as a gift), leave that blank. “Category” is also optional, and isn’t currently used for anything. You can even leave the date blank if you’re not sure, but including an estimate is probably a good idea so it sorts well with your other assets. As soon as you add an item, you should see it appear in the “Combined Small Assets” list. When you’re done, click the “-” above column “H” and that section will hide itself.

Screenshot 2022-02-03 185908

Anything else you’d like people to know?
Every now and then, as you purchase items and add a “Value” for them, you’ll need to manually update your “Small Assets” account to reflect the change in Value. You’ll also periodically want to review the list, removing a value from any items you no longer have, and changing the value for any items who’s value has increased or decreased (these changes happen in the “Value” column on the Transactions sheet).

Is it ok for others to copy, use, and modify your workflow?
Yes, and let me know of any problems or ideas for improvements!

If you said yes above, please make a copy of your workflow and share the copy’s URL:
You can now find this in the Tiller Community Solutions extension, it’s called “Small Asset Tracker”

2

Another awesome idea from you. Good stuff man!

1 Like
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Thanks for the post. Regarding normal transaction cataloging, would the purchase of a Small Asset, such as a Rolex be considered an Investment “Transfer” Category or something different? Knowing a Rolex retains its value, I wouldn’t consider it a standard purchase but rather an investment.

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I would think another way of thinking about it would be to create an account for it. You’d make the purchase transaction a transfer, and then manually update the account with the value. You could periodically update the manual account with any changes in the value. This is really what the Small Asset Tracker does, but with fewer accounts, but for something like this, it might make sense to have an account for it.

5

OK but at the core the transaction could be logged as “transfer”?

6

Yea, it could be a transfer to whatever account the rolex is a part of.

7

I have a dumb question. I’ve downloaded this and have it all set up except for linking the Total Value (F4) back to the Small Assets manual account. Where exactly do I link back to Small Assets F4 so that value will get populated in the “Balances” and “Net Worth” sheets? Creating that link directly in those sheets manually breaks them.

Thanks!

8

Unfortunately you need to update the account manually by going into the “Tiller Money Feeds” extension choosing “Manual Accounts”, choose your small assets account and add the value from F4. This adds a transaction to the “Balance History” sheet which then finds it’s way into your Balances sheet. I’m not aware of any way to automate this short of scripting I believe Tiller frowns on (and is difficult to keep working in an environment like this).

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Thanks! That’s actually fine for me since this list of Assets is fairly static and doesn’t change a whole lot.

10

Just got around to setting this up. Handy little tool. It’s amazing how all this stuff adds up. Thanks for creating the template @jpfieber !!

1 Like
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i have a number of low cost basis stock and also investments into private real estate funds run via LLCs. how can i best track this

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I don’t think this template would be appropriate for something like that. Search the forum, I think there should be a few investment templates that might be of use.