If you want to manage your financial accounts without a complete and expensive program like Quicken, Microsoft has a solution called Money in Excel. This new option helps you integrate your bank accounts and other financial data so you can track your expenses, spending habits, investments, and more.
Access to your financial accounts is done through a third-party plugin provided by Plaid, which handles permissions between you and Microsoft. You connect your financial data to Plaid, but Plaid does not share login credentials with Microsoft. (For more information on the security and privacy aspects of this feature, see the Microsoft Money FAQ in Excel.)
As a premium Excel template, Money in Excel is available only to personal and family Microsoft 365 subscribers in the US The feature is also only on the desktop; It will not work on a mobile device. Here we show you how to use Money in Excel to manage your personal finances directly from a spreadsheet.
Get money in Excel
Before you can start using Money in Excel, you must first add it to your instance of Excel. Get the Money template by going to the Microsoft Money in Excel page and logging in as a Microsoft 365 subscriber. Click Edit in browser to add the template to the browser-based version of Excel, or click Download to get it for the desktop version of the program. Both versions work the same way.
If you want to use Money in Excel anywhere from any computer, choose the browser based version. If you want to restrict it to only specific computers where Excel is installed locally, go with the download option.
After choosing the browser version, click the Continue button to add the template. Using the download option, download and then open the downloaded XLTX file in Excel, then click Allow editing to add the template. Once you have set up the template, click on the Welcome and Instructions tabs at the bottom of the worksheet to learn more about Money in Excel.
In the right pane of New Office Plugin, click Trust this pluginthen click Start. Press the Sign In button and sign in with your Microsoft account.
Connect your financial accounts
Now you must connect your financial accounts to Excel. The right panel will explain how Plaid will connect to your financial accounts and how Microsoft uses Plaid. Click Continue for each screen to continue setup.
The next screen presents a list of banks. Choose the bank in which you have an account to enter your financial information. If you don’t see your bank in the list, type your name in the Search field at the top and select it from the results.
Log in with your bank account credentials and click Submit. Then choose how you want to receive a security code to authenticate your identity. You can select email, phone call or text message. Click Continue, then enter the code in the appropriate field and click Submit.
If you have more than one account at the bank you chose, click on the accounts you want to view in Excel. After accessing the data, review the listed accounts.
Click on the three dots icon and select Hide account for any account you don’t want to incorporate. Otherwise, click Update workbook.
View and filter data
Your transactions from the accessed accounts appear in the workbook, specifically in the Transactions worksheet. Click on the Transactions tab and scroll through each transaction to see the date, merchant, category, amount, account, account number, and institution.
Note that the required header row and data filtering are automatically activated in the worksheet, allowing you to change the sort order in each column. Click the down arrow next to a column heading to change the order between: oldest and newest or newest and oldest; A to Z or Z to A; and from least to greatest or from greatest to least.
You can also filter the results to see only certain transactions. For example, click the down arrow for the Account column heading and change the filter to show only credit card or check transactions.
You can then filter the results to show only transactions in a certain range. As an example, click the down arrow for the Quantity column heading, move to Numeric Filters, then select a criteria, such as Greater than.
Enter a number to see only amounts greater than the number you entered. Click the down arrow for the column heading and choose Clear Filter to remove the filter.
Graphics and categories
Click the Snapshot tab to see charts and graphs showing your expenses for a given month compared to the previous month. To see a specific month, click the down arrow for the month at the top and change it to a different month. You can also see where and how you spend your money during the month.
You can add your own custom categories to track specific transactions by clicking on the Categories tab. Go to the Custom Categories section. In the first field in the category name column, type the name of the new category. Then in the Category type column, select the type for your new category, such as Income or Expenses.
Then go to the Transaction sheet. Click the down arrow next to a transaction to which you want to apply one of the new custom categories and select that category from the list.
Update data and change settings
If you ever want to add or change information in the book, see the panel on the right. Click the Refresh button to update your spreadsheet with the latest transactions. New financial accounts can always be added by clicking on the Accounts tab and selecting Add an account.
Add additional templates to calculate net worth and recurring expenses on the Templates tab. the For you The tab shows you the main merchant you spent money on, and the Settings tab allows you to view and modify key settings.
Finally, be sure to save your workbook before closing so that you can open and update it every time you want to review your financial accounts, transactions, and spending patterns.
