I’ve met a few people whose main accounting is their check register. They don’t want or need a full-on personal finance system like Quicken, or Mint.com. They want to enter their purchases and deposits and mark when checks have cleared. What they want is an electronic check register. After the break, a check register that might work for you if you are one of these types.
iWork 09 came with a lot of templates for each of the apps. The Numbers apps look particularly appealing as there is a whole lot of Personal Finance Templates. The one that is central to solving these check register accountants’ problem is the Check Register template.
The table that is produced by the Template is adequate, but I usually add a column to the table between category and amount. I, then, format the column to have check boxes. The name of this column is Cleared, and this is checked off when the check clears on the statement.
There are several different ways to work this register. You can keep the register table growing by constantly adding rows above the last row or below it. The formulas will move with the expanded table. You might want to stop on The last day of the year, and make a new Check Register.
You could make twelve worksheets in the file with a thirteenth summary sheet. The 12 worksheets would be by month. Personally I prefer the whole year in one table. The Account Categories would have the whole year numbers from which to make budgets.
The reason I am even suggesting Numbers is that it is a solid product for an even more solid price of $79. There is also the eventually use of numbers worksheets in the iPad. Right now the movement of files into the iPad is tortuous, but eventually Apple will get the syncing right and numbers would be a good way to keept track of this information.
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Hello,
How can I personalize this spreadsheet. I really like the simplicity of it and would love to add a couple of more categories to suit me but I could not figure it out how to do it. Can you direct me to a link or web site that explains it. TIA
You have to do 3 things to add a category to the sheet.
You have to add the category you wish to Account categories table. You do this by selecting a row header and choosing either add a row above or below.
Then you have bring down the formula from the row above
Select the chart element/ It will highlight the cells from category that make the chart. Make sure that it includes the new row.
Finally select all the data cells in the transaction table for the column category. Click on the inspector and select the cells inspector. The cell is a popup cell type. Just add the category you wish to add there.
Once you have all that done, you have added a category to this sheet.