Welcome to Tiller!

If you're coming from Money in Excel, we're glad you're here! This is your comprehensive guide for transitioning from Money in Excel to Tiller.

Getting Started

Start your free trial

Most likely you've already done this step if you've landed on this page, but just in case, to get started with Tiller you'll need to start a free trial.

The link sent to you from Microsoft should have automatically applied an extra 30 days to your free trial for a 60 day free trial. If your trial does not indicate that you got 60 days free please reach out to our billing team at billing@tillerhq.com to let us know.

If you haven't started a free trial yet use this link to sign up for Tiller and start a free 60-day trial.

This link prompts you to choose an account to authenticate into the Tiller service, creates an account, and signs you in to the Tiller Console. If you have already started a trial with Tiller use the login provider (Microsoft or Google) and the login identity (email address) you used to start your trial.

Add accounts to Tiller

Next you'll connect your financial institutions to Tiller.

Please note, we use a different bank data aggregator than Money in Excel used. We use Yodlee, whereas Money in Excel used Plaid. This means you may find that some of the institutions you were able to connect to Money in Excel are not supported by Tiller. If your account appears in the list of search results, but you have trouble connecting it try a different institution, and then come back to that one after reviewing our troubleshooting guide. Our support team is also happy to help you troubleshoot and you can reach them using the chat tool in the lower right of this page.

Since we use Yodlee you may not get as much historical data when you first connect your accounts to Tiller. We can generally bring in around 30-90 days of history, but this varies by institution.

Once you're set up in your Foundation Template, you can use the steps below to copy over your historical data from your Money in Excel workbook.

To add an account to Tiller

Sign in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tillerhq.com/
Click "Add accounts" under the Account Summary
Search for your institution
Follow the login prompts
Your account should appear in the Account Summary area after a few moments, if it doesn't try refreshing the browser window.

Remember:

You must connect at least one financial institution to get started with an Excel spreadsheet powered by Tiller.
For the best experience, be sure to connect the same accounts that you were tracking with Money in Excel.
If you have issues adding an account, try a different institution, and then come back to that one after reviewing our troubleshooting guide.

Create a spreadsheet

We recommend that you get started with Tiller using the Tiller Foundation Template. At this time we do not support connecting Tiller's bank data feeds to the Money in Excel template you've been using. You also must be using a version of Excel installed from a Microsoft 365 subscription or Excel Online in order for the Foundation Template to function properly.

We do have some steps below for copying over your data from Money in Excel, but recommend that you create your Foundation template before migrating your Money in Excel data.

We also have had a lot of Money in Excel users come to Tiller and just start fresh without copying data from their Money in Excel workbook and they're much happier with Tiller.

How to create your Foundation Template

On the Tiller Console, click “Create a spreadsheet” then “Start with Microsoft Excel”
1. This will download the Tiller Foundation Template to the folder where your downloads are saved.
Open this file and rename it with a unique name and save it to a location where you will remember.
1. If you opt to store your file on OneDrive, make note of the OneDrive account that is signed in to Microsoft Excel when you save it.
Install the Tiller Money Feeds Excel add-in
1. Open the Insert ribbon at the top of your Excel workbook
2. Click “My Add-ins”
3. Choose “Store”
4. Search for Tiller Money Feeds
5. Follow the prompts to install the add-in
6. ⚠️ Please note, the add-in only works in versions of Excel installed via a Microsoft 365 subscription or Excel Online.
Setup Tiller Money Feeds in your new workbook
1. Open the Data ribbon
2. Click the “Tiller Money Feeds” icon
3. Click “Sign in to Tiller” and sign in to the account you used to subscribe to Tiller
4. Link the workbook
5. Click “Link Accounts” to select accounts you would like to link to this sheet, preferably the same ones you tracked with Money in Excel
6. Click “Confirm”
7. Click the “Fill” button to fill the latest transaction and balance data for those accounts.

Migrate Money in Excel data (optional)

If you want to migrate your Money in Excel data you can do that using the steps below, but in many cases other customers coming from Money in Excel have just started fresh and left their old workbook behind without going through those steps and are really happy with Tiller.

We do not have an automated tool to help you migrate the data at this time.

⚠️ If you've been using subcategories in Money in Excel, please see our special notes about subcategories below.

⚠️ If you customized your column order, deleted, or inserted columns, please carefully copy and paste the data to match Tiller's columns where Merchant in Money in Excel = Description in Tiller.

Open the Money in Excel workbook that has the data you’d like to migrate.
Migrate your categories ⚠️ If you've been using subcategories in Money in Excel, please see our special notes about subcategories below.
1. Navigate to the Categories sheet (tab along the bottom).
  1. Select the first category in the list (but not the header row keyword “Category”) then hold shift and click the last category to select the rest of the categories in the list.
  2. Right click and choose Copy or use CMD/CTRL + C.
  3. Back in your Tiller workbook navigate to the Categories sheet.
  4. Clear the default categories, groups, and types from the sheet leaving the headers in row 1.
  5. Right click the first category cell and choose “Paste Special > Values”
    Note: Using “Paste Special > Values” makes sure the formatting is consistent with the rest of the Tiller workbook’s formatting rather than pulling the formatting from the Money in Excel workbook.
2. Migrate category type
  1. Repeat the steps (a.i - a.v) above for the Type data to move it from your Money in Excel workbook to the Tiller workbook Categories sheet.
3. Assign groups to your categories
  1. The group is the larger classification that your categories fall into. Read more on how we think about this structure and how it’s a little different than Money in Excel’s subcategories here. You can also do this step later.
4. Decide if subcategories are important to you. ⚠️ If you've been using subcategories in Money in Excel, please see our special notes about subcategories below.
  1. If you have not assigned subcategories to any transactions in your Money in Excel workbook, delete this column in the Transactions sheet of your Money in Excel workbook then move on to step 3 below.
  2. If you were using subcategories in Money in Excel, insert a column to the left of the Amount column (click the Amount column and choose “Insert” from the Home menu) in the Tiller workbook’s Transactions sheet and title it Subcategory.
    The column will adopt the data validation from the Category column. To remove it,
    Open the Data ribbon.
    Click the Data Validation icon.
    Check the “Apply these changes to all other cells…” option
    Click “Clear”
    Click “Ok”
    Note: the Tiller template does not use subcategories or have a place to define subcategories so if you choose to move this data over it will be for historical purposes.
    The Group > Category structure in Tiller is very similar and supports a category/subcategory mindset. Read more about that here.
Migrate your transactions
1. Compare the transactions in both workbooks to identify where the overlap of duplicates starts in your Tiller workbook’s Transactions sheet and clear these from the Transactions sheet in your Tiller workbook.
  1. Tiller can fill 30 - 90 days' worth of historical transaction data so you may need to look back that far to identify the first transaction that only exists in the Money in Excel workbook.
  2. Tip: If you have many accounts, use a filter to help you review one account at a time.
2. In your Money in Excel Transactions sheet,
  1. Select all the data in the sheet starting with the first transaction’s date (but not the header keyword “Date”)
  2. Hold the shift key
  3. Scroll and select (while still holding shift) the last transaction’s institution cell to select all the transactions you want to migrate.
  4. Right click and choose “Copy”
3. In your Tiller workbook’s Transactions sheet, right click the first empty cell in column A (the Date column) and choose “Paste Special > Values & Number Formatting” to paste your transactions into the workbook.
4. Finally, sort the transactions sheet by the Date column from Z>A if your transactions are not in newest to oldest order.

The Tiller Foundation Template has some additional columns that will be blank for the migrated transactions. It’s okay to leave those columns blank for migrated data.

About subcategories

One thing to consider before starting the migration is whether or not subcategories are important to you. Tiller does not use or support subcategories. We use a Type, Group, Category structure.

Type = Income, Expense, Transfer
1. Group = groupings for your categories such as Discretionary, Bills, Income Sources.
  1. Categories = unique classifications for your income and expenses that are organized into one of your groups. A transaction can only be assigned to one category and categories on the Categories sheet must be unique. The Group column data does not show up on the Transactions sheet. Budget targets are set per category.

In some cases using your categories from Money in Excel as your groups in Tiller could work. This is something to consider as you're migrating your data. Step 2 above recommends that you migrate categories from Money in Excel and use them as categories in Tiller. If you've invested heavily in subcategories you might consider using your categories from Money in Excel into the Group column in Tiller.

You could also add a Note or Tags column to your Transactions sheet in Tiller to capture the detail offered by the subcategories from Money in Excel.

You can read more in depth about subcategories here.

Understanding the Foundation Template

Now you’ve got your spreadsheet filled with all your bank data you can get to know the Foundation template using this guide to learn more about how to set it up for budgeting and cash flow tracking.

Learn more about using Tiller with Microsoft Excel on our Help Center here.

Foundation Template basics:

Categorize transactions on the Transactions sheet
Set budget targets on the Categories sheet for each monthly budget column (these columns will need to be expanded)
Use AutoCat to help you automate transaction categorization by creating custom rules
Review your budget plan and cash flow on the Monthly & Yearly Budget sheets (these sheets may be hidden)
Review your account balances on the Balances sheet
Customize your accounts' into groups on the Accounts sheet (may be hidden)
Use the Tiller Money Feeds add-in to fill in new bank data a few times a week

Other Differences to note

Tiller is not Money in Excel

Tiller is an independent company and distinct product from Money in Excel. We partnered with Microsoft to offer Microsoft 365 subscribers a 60 day free trial of Tiller since Money in Excel is coming to an end, but Tiller is not Money in Excel. If you're a Microsoft 365 subscriber with a free Tiller trial and it doesn't seem like you got our 60 day offer, please reach out to our billing team at billing@tillerhq.com to let us know.

Fantastic support team

Our support team is based in the United States and is available via email or our messaging tool in the lower right of the Tiller Console during our support "office hours". To keep our support top notch and based in the U.S. we do not offer live 24/7 or video support, but you'll get a friendly, helpful, and prompt first reply within a few hours from one of our support reps. Our subsequent replies can take a day or two, depending on our support volume. Read more about our support here.

Supported templates

You'll notice that the Foundation Template does not have the same visualizations you were used to from Money in Excel. The Foundation Template offers monthly and yearly budgeting as well as some insights on Spending Trends and a quick glance at your net worth on the Balances sheet. The Foundation Template is a curated solution based on years of customer feedback and research. Tiller was around long before Money in Excel came on the scene!

You can find additional community-built and supported templates that you can easy add to your Foundation Template in the Show & Tell category for Microsoft Excel in the Tiller Community. If you have questions about these solutions, be sure to post your question in the Tiller Community topic for that solution and the builder can answer.

Other tools and features

Right now the feature set in our Microsoft Excel add-in is less rich than both that of Money in Excel and our Google Sheets offering, but that will change! We're working diligently this year (2023) to bring the features available in our Google Sheets add-on into the Excel add-in including easier ways to track balances for manual accounts, ability to manually add transactions using the sidebar, transaction splitter, template insertion and more. We don't have any specific release dates right now, but we communicate feature releases via the Tiller Community News & Announcements category, via email, and in-app messaging in the Tiller Console and add-in sidebar.