Google Drive. It’s like that file drawer that you keep stuffing full of new files, and never stop to consider whether what you’re putting in there is even very useful. Your Google Drive should have things that make your life more organized, more efficient and in a word…better.
One of the things that can improve your life is effective money management. Unfortunately, a vast majority of people out there fail miserably in that regard. So, while you’re creating Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Drawings, why not save yourself some time when it comes to your finances, and make use of a few pre-made templates to kickstart your financial planning?
Google Drive Templates for Money Management
For starters, Google Drive comes with a really cool library of integrated Google Drive apps that you can use to enhance your experience.
The app that you’re looking for in this case is one called “Drive Template Gallery”. It’s an app that gives you access to the Google Drive template gallery straight from the “Create” menu.
Once you access the “Templates” gallery, you can search for each of the following money management templates to make use of them.
1. Family Budget Planner by ExcelTemplateSource.com
Creating a budget is hard enough, but creating a budget for a family is sometimes like trying to come up with the national budget. You’ve got utility bills, car and travel expenses, and the kids have lessons and school expenses. The list goes on and on. It’s no wonder so many families find themselves living from month to month, wondering where all the money went.
It doesn’t have to be that way, and the Family Budget Planner template is a really good first step.
It’s crazy how thorough this template is. It includes just about every bill or utility a typical family would have to deal with. All you have to do is fill in the colored fields in each section for each month. Totals are calculated for you, and your balances at the bottom show you your overall financial health. Stay out of the negative zone…
What’s cool about this template is that there’s a second tab for a rental property.
Ideal for people who’ve invested in such a property. This is where you can track all of the expenses, income and profit from the property.
2. The Personal Budget Tracker by Joao Cunha Jeronimo
If you’re more of the visual type, then you’ll definitely want to opt for The Personal Budget Tracker. Just like the Family Budget Planner, this tracker gives you a budget form where you can fill out all of your monthly expenses and everything.
The difference is that this template has a second tab where all of the monthly data goes – so the first tab is your worksheet and the second is your actual monthly tracking data. All totals are automatically calculated.
Best of all though, are the visualizations of your financial data. This is just awesome stuff. You’ll find charts for your actual tracking numbers versus your budgeted numbers across different metrics like income versus expenses or your various bills.
It’s really useful to see how close your tracking numbers are to your budget, because when you see that your “Entertainment” budget is nearly surpassing the budgeted amount, it’s a lot harder to make up an excuse why it’s okay to go to the movies or go out for dinner.
3. Savings Calculator by Vertex42.com
Once you’ve established a budget, you’ll want to make good use of all that spare money that you’ve been able to create. This is where the Savings Calculator template comes into play.
You can use this template to type in how many years you have left to retirement, how much you’ve invested so far “Initial Investment”, estimated interest rate and everything else. Then, you can watch as the calculator template shows you exactly how much you’ll have saved up every single year from now until your retirement.
Feel like you won’t have enough at retirement? Well then go back to your budget, tweak things to create more spare money, and then rework the numbers in the Savings Calculator so that you’re wealthier once it’s time to retire!
4. Monthly Budget Planner by Trevor Jones
What if you don’t have all kinds of expendable cash on hand? What if you are already barely making ends meet, plus you have loads of debt holding you back. What can a budget template do for a poor soul like you?
Well, a lot actually. If this is your situation, I’d recommend taking a look at the Monthly Budget Planner.
This budget has a similar spreadsheet like the others, except it’s much more detailed and actually shows you the yearly totals for your monthly budgeted amounts. It can be pretty eye-opening to see that the $25 magazine subscription that you don’t think much about actually turns into a $300 yearly cost.
Over to the right side of the budget sheet, you’ll find a category breakdown of expenses. Again, this gives you a better feel for where you’re spending most of your money, and whether it might be possible to start shifting money from things like “Life” over to things like “Debt Repayment”.
That Debt Repayment section is there for a good reason, because on another tab of this spreadsheet, you’ll find a very valuable debt repayment schedule. This is a fantastic place for you to see just how much your debt is costing you, and how much money you’re wasting by only paying the minimum payments.
The “Total Interest Paid” column can get pretty shocking to see as well.
5. Invoice Tracking by Jeremy Caplan
A list of creative money management templates should definitely include the Invoice Tracking form by Jeremy Caplan. This is especially useful for anyone that runs a business or otherwise has to accept payments from people or clients. You use the template to design the form with the details you need.
Once you’re done, click on the link to the live form and you’ll see your new invoicing form available right on the web.
Now you’ve got the most convenient method available to type in your invoicing details from anywhere. Received a payment from a client while on the road? Just use your smartphone to visit your online invoice form, type in the details, and it’s recorded in your Google Drive. Done.
6. Wedding Budget Planner by Aurang Zeb
Got a wedding coming up? Don’t leave the budget to chance. Bad things happen when you do that. Plan ahead and use the Wedding Budget Planner template.
Before you start shopping around for your wedding, go down the list and put in a realistic estimate of how much you expect each item to cost. Once you’re done, you’ll have an actual total to work with and plan for. This is how much money you’ll need for your wedding. Then, as the day approaches and you start buying things, fill in those values in the “Actual” column, and watch to make sure that you aren’t going over budget.
7. Checkbook Register by Brian Aquinto
I stopped using a check register when I was in college, mostly because with ATM’s available everywhere, where I could just check my balances, the checkbook register felt kind of stupid. Plus I was lazy.
Well, it didn’t take long to learn the hard lesson of an overdraft to realize why a register is so important. Keeping track of what the balance should be is critical, and to get away from the silly paper register, you can use the Checkbook Register template in Google Drive.
This template looks, feels and smells just like an actual check register, minus the ink smudges and scribbles. You type in the date of the transaction, the description and the total, and the register template takes care of subtracting or adding the amount from your previous balance. Access the sheet from your smartphone, and you’ve got a perfect digital check register in your pocket.
8. Vacation Budget and Trip Planner by Vince Schneider
By far, one of the most expensive activities in life is vacation. We all work so hard to save up for it, and then we blow most of our money while we’re trying to “relax”. It’s like a vicious cycle, but almost everyone does it. Well, why not try to take a vacation without putting yourself in debt? Use the Vacation Budget and Trip Planner to plan out your entire trip, including the whole itinerary, estimate all of the costs, and be prepared for the financial demands the trip is going to put on you.
The main sheet lets you go down through and develop your entire itinerary, including the costs for each stop and what it costs to travel there. However, the next tab is really my favorite. This is your “travel dashboard” — the place where you can see a really cool visual breakdown of expenditures on your trip and where the bulk of your money is going.
It’s so easy to just head out on a vacation blind, and hope that you’re going to have enough money, but using a template like this one, you can sort everything out ahead of time, so that when you’re finally on your vacation, you can actually relax and enjoy it.
9. Vehicle Expense Sheet by Prem Aseem Jain
Second to vacations in the realm of over-priced things, is the automobile. Between registering, insuring, maintaining and fueling the stupid things, they pretty much drain the heck out of your budget. They are a necessary evil, but at least you can track how much your car is draining you by using the Vehicle Expense Sheet template.
This is actually a useful way to digitize the travel records you need to keep when you use your car as part of your business needs. Vehicle expenses come into play at tax time, and this data is invaluable.
It not only helps you track your overall vehicle expenses, it also plots them out for you over time, showing you potential seasonal patterns in those expenses. Maybe even revealing ways you can cut down on things like maintenance or fuel costs by planning trips at different times of the year?
What’s cool about this expense is that it considers the “bike” to be a vehicle, which I guess in some parts of the world it really is.
There’s a special section on each sheet just for your bike expenses as well, if you have one.
10. Rent and Expenses by Google Docs
The final template is no less cool than the rest. In fact, it’s a sheet that I wish I had in college back in the day. If you split rent with other people, this spreadsheet can help you track all of the expenses associated with renting a property, and then splitting those expenses between 2-3 people.
The bottom part of the sheet helps break down how people should get paid back if one or two people initially paid the rent. You can use this area to track how much the roommates owe that person for paying more than their share of the rent.
As you can see, there are all kinds of creative and useful ways to use spreadsheets and forms to manage your money, and you don’t have to start from scratch to get it done. Browse through the templates section in Google Drive and load in a pre-made template. This way, you can spend less time creating a budgeting spreadsheet from scratch, and spend more time making money!
Do you have any favorite money management templates in Google Drive? Share your personal favorites and tips in the comments section below.
Source: www.makeuseof.com
1 comment:
Basically when the talk comes for monetary transaction, expense is the term that keeps utmost importance. Basically for a right track of the expense management, we have been using the cloud based expense reporting software from Replicon which acceptably manage the expenses to go in the right flow.
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