Multi function formula

I have a personally created Excel workbook that I use for tracking all our expenses by category. And the Pivot Table is an indispensable component in that. I'm attaching a greatly simplified example to get your thinking started.

The heart of anything like this, I would contend, is a simple but well-thought-out transactional table, showing all income and outflow. My own covers several credit cards and two bank accounts as well as an IRA. And I have an set of categories of income and another for expenses.

Now, to be clear, this example is for tracking "after the fact" income and expense transactions. It does not include setting a budget for categories like "Food" or "Entertainment". I would see that as a separate task, and would be wary of trying to integrate those two things--the planning of allowable amounts for each expense category, and the tracking of actual amounts. My own practice would separate them and do eye-ball comparisons, working with my wife (in my case) to talk about where we're spending too much or too fast, etc.

The tracking, though, begins with a transactional database and then uses the Pivot Table to summarize.