Background
I created a spreadsheet few years ago to record and manage my all income or expenses and had been using this since I created it first. If it is personal, business or work and even if it is finance or any other tasks I always want to understand where I stand now and when I started using this tool I created I started to like it and felt the benefit I had by maintaining this document till date. I realised its benefits in very early days and as a first course of action I suggested my elder brother to use it since his finances were all shattered but he didn't use or provide me any feedback and hence his finances are still shattered but consequently I didn't share it with anyone else until I showed it to a colleague at work who really liked and appreciated the idea. The appreciation encouraged me and I worked on it to modify and make it understandable and usable by anyone willing to start managing their personal finances.
Purpose
My personal thoughts are that if you are running your personal finances which pretty much every responsible person does or if you running a business, you would want to see where you stand with your finances and what would the balance look like by the end of financial year. However most people don't care about it.
Your personal finances are not different from a company finance and you can manage a company's finance in the same way you manage your personal finance. I have assume that if you reached this article you would have basic understanding of maths, accounts, income & expense items and have some goals however where I want to take you is similar to a company's Balance Sheet which isn't a difficult task.
A company balance sheet may sound you a difficult or complex task but it really isn't when you start it from your personal finance and to be honest once you have done it for yourself it will give you enough understanding or confidence to lift your finances from personal to company accounts.
Template Layout and Features
The template is laid out in a way that it is easy and quick to maintain and at the same time it provides you with instance balance sheet and forecast that you have planned for. Please find below key features offered by this template.
Personal Finance:
A general ledger that will comprise of every income or expense item in any of the accounts you hold under a certain category title.
An accounts overview will then display the account balance and overall balance for a certain day during the year which you can move using sliding bar. e.g. Current account balance today or savings account balance on a given date.
Category view will show the breakdown of each expense type per month with a summary and average per month. e.g. monthly amount spent on Food.
Car Mileage and Costs:
Mileage section in this document will have to be maintained with information from every fuel tank you fill. Please note that in order to calculate correct MPG (Miles per Gallon) you must always fill up the tank to full, however please note that if your tank is full and your car is stolen it will allow thief to take him far away so some people with no insurance only put a little fuel in car every day.
On the same page you can see your monthly and annual mileage, miles per day, costs, costs per day and achieved miles per gallon.
I have found it very useful and you may believe or not but I was once able to predict future problems in one of the car's engine when I could see a trend in increase in MPG in a given period.
Mortgage or Loan Calculator:
Most people would have long term loans such as a house mortgage or car loan. This document has few illustrations which you can tune to suit your future needs or aims. e.g. What would be the monthly repayment for a 20 year loan and if you wish to repay it in 10 years how much would you have to repay a month.
Zakat Calculator:
If you have an obligation to pay Zakat (charity) based on a minimum liquid wealth during a year as a muslim, you can calculate this using this document based on your account balances. As long as you have all accounts listed with their income/expense entries you wouldn't have to do anything as it will review your full year's ledger and report on how much Zakat you have to pay. The only variable that you will have to edit is the value of 10 gram Gold in your local currency.
Download
You can download Excel 2010 based template to start managing your finances here.
Help and Support
If there is anything that I feel that you would need help or assitance I'll be adding it to this page but there shouldn't be any ongoing support required and hence not available.
However if you have any feedback you can submit it through the online form but you must not expect an answer.
Copyright and Distribution
This article, template and related information is copyrighted. You can modify the document for your personal needs but must not redistribute in its original or modified form.