The Tiller Foundation Template for Google Sheets allows you to quickly see all your account balances in one place, set budget targets to help you stay on track, visualize your cash flow, and easily understand your spending and earnings across categories for a selected time period.
How to find your spreadsheet
You can always easily access your Tiller-powered Google Sheets directly from your Google Drive or when you log in to the Tiller Console.
Open, or log in to, your Google Drive at https://drive.google.com using the same Google/Gmail account that you used to sign up for Tiller.
Step 1: Set up the automated bank data feeds
Most likely you’ve already done the steps of setting up your bank data feeds to the spreadsheet. If not, you can get those steps in the Getting Started guide here.
You will need to connect your Foundation Template to your bank accounts using the Tiller Money Feeds add-on for Google Sheets.
Follow the steps here or watch this getting started video.
Keeping your sheet updated with data
You will need to open the Tiller Money Feeds add-on sidebar from the Extensions menu in Google Sheets and click the "Fill sheets" button each time you want to get the latest transaction and balance data in your spreadsheet. Some accounts may require you to manually refresh before data is available to fill into the spreadsheet.
Step 2: Setting Up Categories
The Categories sheet allows you to organize how your money is spent and earned.
You can add new categories to the bottom of the list and overwrite or delete the example categories.
Feel free to use the sorting features in each header column to sort your Categories sheet based on how you'd like to see the data organized. Note that the Transactions sheet Category column orders the list of categories based on how they appear in the Categories sheet. Therefore, if you want to see your categories list sorted alphabetically when you're assigning categories on the Transactions sheet, sort the Categories sheet by the Category column from A>Z.
Each category should be unique and have a group and a type assigned. You can have up to 200 categories.
The categories sheet populates the dropdown menu for the Category column on the Transactions sheet.
Types are Income, Expense, and Transfer.
Think about Group as the bigger bucket that the categories fall into. Read more about subcategories.
The Transfer type is generally used for transactions that correspond to money moving between accounts. Read more about Transfers.
Try to keep it simple, you can always change your mind and adjust these later.
Step 3: Categorizing Transactions
Quickly categorize transactions on the Transactions sheet by typing the category into the Category cell for a transaction or by using the dropdown menu that appears by hovering over the category cell.
The Category column will auto-populate the Category cell once you start typing the category. Once the appropriate category appears, press Enter to quickly move to the next line.
There is no need to categorize all your historical transaction data unless you want to build a historical picture of your budget.
We recommend categorizing last month up to today if you’re brand new to budgeting and want help deciding on your budget targets for a category using your actuals.
You can automate your transaction categorization using AutoCat. Read more here.
Understanding the Transactions Sheet
The Transactions sheet is the heart of your Tiller-powered Google spreadsheet. It’s where Tiller fills in your latest bank transactions when you click Fill sheets in the Tiller Money Feeds add-on side bar.
Feel free to modify the data in the Transactions sheet, but don’t change the name of the Transactions sheet (tab) or modify any of the existing header keywords.
Step 4: Setting Up A Budget
The Tiller Foundation Template has Monthly and Yearly Budget sheets that allow you to review your budget, actuals, and available for a single month in your 12 month budget period or the entire 12 month budgeting year.
You should have already customized your Categories and Groups on the Categories sheet. Now it’s time to set your budget targets for each category.
Set your budget targets
Enter in the budget target for each category in the first month in column E on the Categories sheet. All subsequent months will update to the same target. This “cascading” feature allows you to quickly set budget targets for an entire year in minutes.
Modify individual months' budget targets as needed by directly editing the cell for that category and month and then the next month’s value if needed to correct the budget cascading.
Directly edit the budget for a month for a category as needed. (e.g. if your electricity bill is higher in July than it is in January, edit the budget amount for electricity for July directly to overwrite the automatically filled budget amount).
ℹ️ Each month after the first month uses the previous month's budget amount as it's target using a simple formula =[previous cell]
If you need help setting budget targets, and you categorized last month up to today, you can review the Monthly Budget sheet actuals for last month to see how much you spent and use that to help you set a baseline.
Review your budget
Review the Monthly and Yearly Budget sheet in your Google spreadsheet to see how you're tracking against your monthly and yearly budget so far.
Pay attention to the budgeted cash flow for each month on the Yearly Budget sheet. You can also review a single month at a time using the Monthly Budget sheet.
If you get a negative budgeted cash flow number you either need to increase your expected income, decrease your expected expenses, or know that a surplus of income will come in a later month.
Step 5: Reviewing Account Balances
Review the Balances sheet to see all your account balances neatly organized in one place.
The Balances sheet is organized by Assets and Liabilities, with a quick net worth calculation in the top right. The Balances sheet also includes the last update date for each account that’s linked to the sheet. If you're seeing stale balances, review these steps.
You can customize how accounts are grouped on the Balances sheet by assigning a group on the Accounts sheet.
ℹ️ If an account is missing from the Balances sheet, but it's linked to the sheet, Tiller might not be able to pull the class (asset or liability). You can set a “Class override” using the Accounts sheet so that the account will show on the Balances sheet.
Using the Accounts Sheet
The Accounts sheet allows you to customize how your Accounts appear on the Balances sheet. This sheet is blank by default.
Select an account from the dropdown in column A to start customizing how it appears on the Balances sheet. If an account is missing from the dropdown list, it means it is not linked to this sheet. Review these steps for linking additional accounts to a spreadsheet.
Use the "Class Override" field to assign the class so that the account will appear in the correct section on your Balances sheet.
Assign a custom group by typing in the group name into the Group column.
Use the dropdown in the “Hide” column to hide an account from the Balances sheet.
Troubleshooting Balance Updates
If you notice that the update date is older than about a day
Try clicking "Fill sheets" in the Tiller Money Feeds add-on to pull in a fresh balance.
If it doesn’t pull in any new balance information review these steps.
Use the chat tool in the lower right corner of the Console at https://sheets.tillerhq.com/auth/login if you still aren’t getting a new balance update, or continue to see an error for an account when attempting to refresh.
To link additional accounts to a spreadsheet:
Open your Google Sheet
Open the Add-ons (or Extensions) menu at the top
Choose Tiller Money Feeds > Launch (or Open sidebar)
Click "Connected Accounts"
Place a checkmark next to the new account or remove a checkmark for accounts you no longer want feeding data into the sheet
Click "Confirm"
Your sheet will update with data for these newly linked accounts. Any data that already exists in your spreadsheet for accounts that you unlink will remain in the sheet. If you no longer want to see the data for that account in your spreadsheet use these steps to manually remove the data.
Understanding the Balance History Sheet
The Balance History sheet is where Tiller records the latest balance, and other data associated with the account such as the last four digits of the account number, the institution, and the account class (asset or liability) for each account that is linked to the spreadsheet.
The Balance History sheet is hidden by default. To unhide it, open the view menu at the top of your Google Sheet then click "Hidden Sheets > show Balance History,
Manually tracking non-automated accounts
If Tiller can't connect to one of your institutions or pull in an account you can manually track the account's balance.
To add a manual account:
Launch the Tiller Money Feeds add-on from the Add-ons menu at the top of your Google Sheet
Click Manual Accounts
Select Add Account… in the dropdown menu under “Select or add account:”
Enter an Account name, Account #, Institution, Class, and Type.
Enter the date for the Balance History entry. These can be past or future dates.
Enter the balance (as an absolute value, no negative sign needed for liabilities)
Click “Add unlinked account”
Tiller Money Feeds will confirm the account has been added and it should appear on your Balances sheet.
To update the balance for a manual account:
Launch the Tiller Money Feeds add-on from the Add-ons menu at the top of your Google Sheet
Click Manual Accounts
Select the manual account from the dropdown menu under “Select or add account:”
Enter the date for the Balance History entry.
Enter the balance (as an absolute value, no negative sign needed for liabilities)
Click “update balance”
Step 6: Reviewing Transaction and Balance Insights
Insights
The Insights sheet will light up as soon as you start the data feed to your Foundation template using the Tiller Money Feeds add-in. It’s intended to give you insights into your current financial standing and recent spending.
Quick Insights
You’ll see a few key insights from the last 90 days of your transaction data in the top left of the Insights dashboard. You also see some stats about how much data Tiller has pulled for you so far.
You’ll also see the current balances of your three most active accounts based on transaction activity in the last 90 days.
Net Worth
The Insights dashboard also aims to provide a quick net worth calculation (assets - liabilities) based on accounts you’ve linked for automated feeds to this spreadsheet. If something looks amiss here, check the Balances sheet to make sure your account classes (asset or liability) are assigned correctly.
If you want to manually track accounts review these steps.
Transaction Analyzer
The Transaction Analyzer will give you a few basic reports as soon as your data starts feeding into the sheet. You can adjust the analyzer’s settings to customize the reporting data for a different time period or just a specific account.
Top 10 Inflows shows you the top 10 inflowing transactions, usually this is income, but it can also include transfers depending on what accounts you have linked and/or visible in the reports.
Top 10 Outflows shows you the top 10 outflowing transactions, which is usually spending, but it can also include transfers.
Note: If you don’t want transfers included in these reports you should make sure all your transactions are categorized and that Transfer category types are marked as “Hide” on the Categories sheet.
Top 10 Accounts by Activity shows you which of your accounts have the most transactions in order from most to least active accounts.
Top 10 Descriptions by Frequency shows you where you’re spending money most, the total count of transactions across the selected date range and how much.
Set up your categories and start categorizing your transactions to fuel even more of the Insights sheet.
After categorizing transactions, grouped rows 19 - 31 will come to life.