Forum Discussion
Multi function formula
Hello and thank you in advance if you can help. I would like to build a formula that would be for a budget. the idea is for aa budget. I don't think that i can use a pivot table for this
1 Paid date
2 Paid amount
3 subtract paid amount
4 Highlight row
2 Replies
if with database,you can create a table like
create table myExpense (transDate,transAccount,Amount)
only keep one column for number input will be easily for pivot table.
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.
