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How to Set Up Tiller When You Share Expenses
How to Set Up Tiller When You Share Expenses

Learn how to set up Tiller to track and manage shared expenses with someone else.

Heather Phillips avatar
Written by Heather Phillips
Updated over a week ago

If you'd like to use a single spreadsheet to track and manage shared expenses with a spouse, business partner or family member we recommend these steps.

If the below tips don't fit what you're hoping to do, we recommend searching in the Tiller Community.

Set up your shared Tiller account

You only need one Tiller account so pick the account (Google or Microsoft) you'd like to use to access the Tiller Console and the Tiller Money Feeds add-on/add-in.

The account you start your subscription with will be the one that will log in to the Tiller Console and refresh accounts connections. This account will also be the account used to fill new data into the spreadsheet using the Tiller Money Feeds add-on/in as well as access all other features inTiller Money Feeds such as AutoCat.

If you both need access to be able to refresh accounts and access Tiller Money Feeds, and you do not want to share the username and password to a personal email account, we recommend that you create a new shared account that you both can use for accessing features that require this type of access.

If choosing to sign up for Tiller with a Microsoft account, the account you use to subscribe to Tiller does not need to be subscribed to Microsoft 365, and please note that enterprise/business Microsoft accounts do not work for authenticating to Tiller.

ℹ️ There isn't a way to change your email address once you've started your trial, but you can start a new trial if you change your mind about which account to use and cancel the first account's subscription.

Add accounts on the Console

Once you've decided on which account to use for your subscription, add all your bank connections to the Tiller Console at https://my.tillerhq.com/ under the Account Summary.

If you have multiple logins to the same institution you can add a second login by choosing “Add accounts” on the Tiller Console under Account Summary and choose the option to “Add a new login”

🆘 If you have any trouble adding accounts, please review this guide for tips and next steps.

Create and share your spreadsheet

Once you’ve added your financial institutions you can create a spreadsheet and start automating your bank data. Learn more about how to create your first spreadsheet here.

If you have a shared bank account that appears twice in your Account Summary because you've connected multiple logins to the Tiller Console for the same bank, only link one instance of the account to the spreadsheet otherwise you'll end up with duplicate transactions.

You can share your spreadsheet with your partner using the built in collaboration features of both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel so each of you can make changes to the spreadsheet and keep transactions categorized.

When collaborating via an Excel workbook, you'll need to save it to a cloud-based storage service like OneDrive or SharePoint. This allows you to access the workbook from any device and makes it easy for others to access and edit the file. You won't be able to collaborate on a file that is stored locally (on your computer drive.)

Setting up Categories for Shared Expenses

When you share expenses there are some considerations to keep in mind as you’re setting up your Categories sheet (more on Categories here in the Foundations Guide). The example category structure below outlines one way you might think about how to set up your categories when you share household expenses with a spouse or partner.

Example category structure:

  • Partner 1 income

  • Partner 2 income

  • Partner 1 expenses

  • Partner 2 expenses

  • Shared expenses paid by partner 1

  • Shared expenses paid by partner 2

In the example below we use the first initial in the Category name to differentiate between categories since they must be unique, but both individuals are likely to have the same types of expenses.

More Resources

You can learn more about collaborating in your spreadsheets with these additional resources:

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