Do you use separate bank accounts for tracking different savings goals or for holding funds for annual expenses like taxes or insurance payments? If not, keeping track of goals when you are using just one or two checking and savings accounts may be difficult.
Online banks are making it simpler to create multiple bank accounts, and some even allow you to set up sub-accounts. Whether your bank allows that or not, you can still create virtual sub-accounts on your own.
Rather than opening multiple bank accounts for your various goals (e.g. home, vacation, car, taxes, insurance payments, etc.), this template lets you separate your bank account into multiple “virtual” accounts – meaning that they only exist in the Excel file.
You can transfer money between the virtual accounts in the spreadsheet without making real-world bank transactions. This may be especially useful if using multiple bank accounts causes increased fees. You can also set goal amounts for each virtual account and the template will show you your progress towards each goal.
This template allows you to track multiple accounts or sub-accounts within a single account register. You can define sub-accounts for specific savings goals, enter the goal amounts for each account, and track your progress using the chart.
The spreadsheet assumes that you are familiar with how to record basic savings and checking account transactions. Some help is included within the workbook to explain how to use the template. If you would like a more detailed explanation on how to enter transactions, you can download the money manager template and read the Help worksheet in that template. For handling multiple accounts, this account register works the same way as the transactions table in the money manager.
If you want to manage a budget or “spending plan,” then you should track spending across all your different accounts. That is what the money manager was designed for. The Account Register Template was designed mainly for tracking savings goals if you are already using some other system for your budget and money management.
Reconciling with Your Bank Statement
If you are using the template to split a single bank account into multiple virtual accounts, you can still use your bank statement to reconcile your spreadsheet with your bank. The transfers between your virtual accounts won’t show up on your actual bank statement, but you can still reconcile the account register spreadsheet with your bank statement by comparing the Total Balance.
