Build Your Own No-Code Automated Personal Finance Tracker With Tiller
Tips and resources for building your own no-code automated personal finance tracker with Google Sheets and Tiller bank feeds from over 21,000 financial sources.
Today, dozens of apps and services promise to keep you in control of your money with the following core features:
- Account aggregation so you can see everything in one place
- Automated updates of recent transactions and balances
- Transaction categorization so you can understand inflows and outflows
- Reports that show trends and spending patterns
Unfortunately, while these apps can be helpful, they’re also often frustrating, inflexible, and spammy. Perhaps that’s why personal finance apps have a meager 3.4% user retention after 90 days [PDF link].
If you have your own way of tracking money and have been frustrated by apps, consider building your own automated personal finance dashboard with spreadsheets powered by Tiller.
How Tiller works
Tiller automatically updates spreadsheets with your daily spending, transactions, and account balances from over 21,000 financial sources, including banks, credit cards, loans, and brokerages.
Tiller combines the convenience of an app with the control of a spreadsheet through:
- automated bank feeds
- prebuilt templates
- helpful workflow tools
- dedicated user community
And unlike any app, with Tiller, you can customize everything with familiar spreadsheet workflows and manage your money, your way.
Using Tiller Money Feeds
You control most of Tiller’s settings directly in your spreadsheets with an add-on for Google Sheets or add-in for Microsoft Excel.
Starting with the Foundation Template
On Google Sheets, we recommend getting started with the flexible Foundation Template.
You’ll see how accounts are linked, how transactions are imported, and how categories work.
The Foundation Template was designed to be customized by you and extended with free Tiller Community Solutions.
Starting with a blank spreadsheet
You can also start with a blank spreadsheet instead of the Foundation Template. In this case, Tiller Money Feeds will install a few required sheets:
- Transactions
- Balances
- Categories
Depending on your settings, your spreadsheet will now import your daily finances automatically. Around these core sheets, you can then build your own template, with custom reports and charts, favorite formulas, and preferred add-ons.
Connecting Tiller to Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel
You can sign up for Tiller and link your banks to your spreadsheets in just a few steps:
- Sign up for a Tiller subscription (completely free for 30 days)
- Authenticate your financial institutions with Tiller (security overview)
- Install the Tiller Money Feeds Add-on for Google Sheets or add-in for Excel
- In your spreadsheets, choose the accounts you want to track
- Choose other settings like manual or automatic data import
- Your spreadsheets are now automated with your daily finances
- Customize the Foundation Template, or build your own template from scratch
Tiller Builders Resources
- Review the Template Builder’s Reference in the Tiller Community
- Read the Getting Started With Tiller Money Feeds help doc
- Use the sample data in this Google Sheet, which includes a year of evergreen transactions and balances data
- Use the Google Sheet Santitizier to get sample financial data to work with, or to anonymize your personal data before sharing your sheet
- See what others have built in the Show & Tell Community forum
- Review Google Sheets functions and formulas for building your own custom financial reporting dashboards
- Learn how the Transactions and Balance History sheets work
What else does Tiller include?
Besides automated bank feeds, Tiller includes:
- Autocat, for powerful, automated transaction categorization 100% based on your rules to automatically categorize transactions according to your rules.
- Daily email that summarizes all recent transactions and account balances
- Foundation Template with budgets, net worth tracker, quick financial insights
- Tiller Community Solutions with prebuilt tools and templates
Learn and Share in the Tiller Community
The Tiller Community is the ultimate resource for building personal finance dashboards powered by Tiller Money Feeds.
Get inspired, see what others have built, share your solutions, and ask and answer questions. See you there!
“For those of us who like to analyze spending, budget, trends, history, investment, and rental performance, Tiller is a powerful tool in tandem with the power of Google Sheets. Makes tax return preparation easy. Well worth the minor cost, great support, and far more useful than tools like Mint or Personal Capital.”
Good info here on best practices and how Tiller sheets work.
Every new customer should be directed here. I have struggled with the Foundation sheet for 5 days before coming across this jewel. Please make it a new customer recommended read.
Glad to hear you’ve found this reference helpful, @4edjennings. We worry that it may be overwhelming to many users.
Yes, it is too much for a newby. That’s why I suggest Tiller Money develop a User Manual. The Builder’s Reference is for Advanced users already familiar with Tiller sheets. We desperately need some guidance for new users. Like I said: An ounce of instruction is worth a pound of troubleshooting.
This doc is brilliant! I’m curious whether it’s still totally up to date?