Financial tracker for shared bills

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Financial tracker usage guide
Financial tracker usage guide

How to keep track of your finances when you split bills

How to keep track of your finances when you split bills

Ingrid Machado

Hello! This document was created as part of the Coda Bootcamp.

Even though it is named as a financial tracker for shared bills, it is possible to use it individually.

For best use, read this guide that teaches you how to set up, use, and understand the monthly financial reports.

Setting up the document

Inserting new base amounts

For the financial tracking, you need to register every monthly bill in the

Base bills⁠

table, with an approximate amount. These values will be used every time a new monthly report is created.

If you are tracking a shared bill, check the Shared checkbox. This information will be used to calculate the total amount paid by each person.

Some bills were previously registered, so you can see the

Monthly report⁠

filled with some examples.

⚠️ Due to a Coda limitation, the first time you add the base bills to a month the "Paid" column won't show up. You need to open the card of one pending bill and change the status so the column will be seen.

⚠️ For a better functioning of the document, the only table that should be edited is the

Base bills⁠

table in the

Database⁠

page.

Configuring your income

You can include your income directly in the

Monthly report⁠

page. These values will be used for the monthly expense suggestions.

Configuring an expense

The expenses displayed in the

Monthly report⁠

page can be edited, so they reflect the real amount paid in the currently month. At first, they will show the base amounts registered so you can have a budget estimate.

By clicking on the bill card, every field can be edited. This is where you input the correct value for the displayed month.

Tracking each month

Select the month you want to track in the

Monthly report⁠

page. If the report is empty, click on the Add bills button so the base report is displayed.

As bills are being paid, and money is being invested, just update the financial board.

Month overview

The Income is displayed as the total amount of registered income values. The Monthly expenses include every bill, shared or not. The Balance is the income, minus the total monthly expenses, plus the shared receivable amount.

Individual expenses

This section displays the same calculations from the previous section, minus the shared receivable amount.

Shared expenses

Every bill checked as shared are displayed in the Shared expenses total amount. The receivable amount is calculated by dividing the shared expenses total by 2 (each person is responsible for 50% of the shared bills). The result is displayed in the Shared receivable amount and used in the balance calculation.

50-15-35 rule

The monthly expense suggestions are calculated using the 50-15-35 rule. In which suggests 3 categories for your income allocation:

50% of your income should be used for significant expenses (housing, food, healthcare)

15% of your income should be used for financials priorities (pay debts or save money)

35% of your income should be used for leisure, and hobbies (entertainment, travel, shopping)

The amounts registered as income are considered for calculating how much you should expend in which category.

If your monthly expenses meet the 50-15-35 rule recommendation, the 🎉 symbol will be displayed next to the category. Otherwise, the 🚨 symbol will be displayed.

Use this emoji code as a base to understand if your month is being financially health or not.

Setting up the document

Inserting new base amounts

Configuring your income

Configuring an expense

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