Staying on top of your business finances doesn’t require expensive software, a well-organised Excel spreadsheet can do the job just as effectively. In Part 3 of DCP Web Designers’ small business bookkeeping series, the focus shifts from invoicing to expenditure tracking: recording every cost your business incurs so you always know exactly where your money is going.
If you’ve followed along with the series so far, Part 1 covered how to track invoices sent to customers, and Part 2 walked through creating a custom invoice template. This instalment builds on that foundation by showing you how to log, organise, and total your business expenses in a single, easy-to-maintain spreadsheet.
Setting Up Your Expenditure Tracking Spreadsheet
The video starts by building a clean, functional table structure. In row 1, spanning columns A through I, the presenter creates the following headers to capture every relevant detail about a purchase:
- Invoice Date
- Paid Date
- Company Name
- Description
- Payment Type
- Location
- Cost
- Other Currencies
- Notes
This structure ensures that no matter what you buy or who you buy it from, you have a consistent place to record the date, the vendor, what it was for, how you paid, and the amount – plus a spot for currency conversions and any extra context.
Logging Real-World Business Expenses
To demonstrate how the sheet works in practice, several realistic example transactions are entered, including:
- A laptop computer purchased from Amazon for £895.00
- Postage stamps from WH Smiths for £2.90
- A domain name from GoDaddy for £9.95
- An SEO ranking checker from Srep Lab for $5.00 (converted to roughly £3.90)
- A monthly mobile SIM plan from EX Mobile for £12.00
- Staff wages paid to DCP for £1,500.00
These examples show how the sheet handles everything from small, one-off purchases to recurring subscriptions and payroll – including how to note foreign currency amounts using the “Other Currencies” column.
Filtering Your Data
Once several entries are in place, the video demonstrates Excel’s Filter feature to make the data easier to analyse:
- Click the header row (row 1) to select it.
- Go to the Data tab and click Filter – this adds drop-down arrows to each column header.
- Click the drop-down arrow on the Payment Type column.
- Uncheck (Select All), then check only PayPal Bank Transfer, and click OK.
The spreadsheet instantly updates to show only the transactions paid via PayPal Bank Transfer, hiding everything else. This makes it simple to isolate expenses by payment method, vendor, date range, or any other column – extremely useful when reconciling bank statements or reviewing spending patterns.
Calculating Totals with AutoSum
To quickly total up expenses for a given period, the video shows Excel’s AutoSum function:
- Click the empty cell directly below your list of costs.
- Click the AutoSum button in the top menu ribbon.
- Press Enter to instantly display the total.
This gives you a running total of expenditure with just a couple of clicks – no manual calculator needed.
Best Practices for Staying On Top of Bookkeeping
Beyond the mechanics of the spreadsheet, the presenter shares a few practical habits that make bookkeeping far less painful:
- Update regularly – aim to update your expenditure sheet every two weeks rather than letting it pile up into a daunting backlog.
- File receipts immediately – keep all receipts and invoices in chronological order as soon as a purchase is made, so they’re easy to cross-reference against bank statements later.
- Use colour-coding – apply colour coding within the spreadsheet to quickly visualise and categorise expense types, such as domestic versus overseas purchases.
What's Next
The video wraps up by looking ahead to Part 4, which will cover adding VAT elements to these documents. This step is only relevant for businesses that are VAT registered – a requirement in the UK once a business crosses a certain revenue threshold. For businesses that aren’t VAT registered, the presenter notes that the first three parts of this series should be enough to keep your bookkeeping in solid shape.
Key Takeaway
Tracking business expenses doesn’t need to be complicated. With a simple, well-structured Excel spreadsheet – combined with consistent habits like regular updates, organised receipt filing, and colour-coding – small business owners can maintain accurate, easy-to-audit financial records without any specialised accounting software.
