Here goes nothing… I can’t keep adding bits or trying to change things. Get things get shipped or whatever that motto is.
I’ve tried to make a template that is broad enough that it should give some form of insight into something. I hope so anyway.
First things first, you need to save this template as your own.
File > Make a Copy – Save it where you wish
You’ll need to get your data. You can either download the CSV and paste this in, or you can use the Google Sheets feed if you subscribe to Plus/Premium. To preserve the data as it comes, this only links to it. The sheet from Monzo will come named as “Monzo Transactions” I think, but if not, if you can name it as that, it will link correcntly.
Get the URL for the sheet and paste into C2 in the “Set Up” tab
Below will automatically get the first date in your sheet. This is used to create the #MegaPulse that we’ll get to a bit later on.
If you have a pot you wish to see a Pulse style graph for too, then add the name and how many days view you’d like of that pot.
Also here is the section to correct merchant names. This won’t change any of your data but tidies it up a bit.
I’ll go over a few tabs and what I’ve set up and how to understand what I’ve done.
Overview
This is a good place to see what’s going on across your account. There are two drop downs to select month and year.
Then from left to right;
Your current account balance and the balance of all pots your ever created. Along with the +/- in/out of that pot for that month. You may have a pot balance that is showing as minus. This is likely because you put money in, changed the name, then took it out.
Details of any incoming payments, this will include refunds etc. It’s basically anything that gives your account a +, along with a total and amount of transactions.
Same as above but for out-goings. This will include direct debits etc.
To the right is an overview of the overview. Money in and out of your account, if you subscribe to Plus/Premium, how much you’ve spent and how much interest you’ve received. How much you’ve put into pots this month and the totals for the key payment types. (I realise this don’t add up, I’ve just typed random numbers so it’s not my data)
This bit I’m calling SalarySorterPro. Sort your salary in advance by £ but also by %
Add your expected salary into the grey box and then work out how much you want to add to each pot. The left side does it by £ and the right by %. Each will tell you what the other is, there’s probably a way I can make them counter each other and stop you trying to spend 147% of your salary, but that’ll be future polish!
Compare
One thing I complain about with Monzo is that it’s difficult to see what you’ve spent and compare it to other periods.
Select two months and you’ll see a list of merchants, your spend/transactions across both and the variance. I’ve set green as less spend, presuming that’s good, which it might not be in all situations, but I think that fits most.
Then the same for categories. The same as pots, this is a list of all categories you’ve used.
You can also compare how you spent and if you set yourself a monthly total budget, how you did compared to that.
In the grey box, type your budget and it will plot the two months to the left for your cumulative spend vs budget. If you don’t have/want a budget, just delete/set to £0 and the red line will go away.
Below that are how much you spent each day.
Pot Goals
Pots are great, but sometimes when you’re saving for something, it’s great to know that you’re 50% there but are you halfway in time?
Select the name of your pot, the start and end dates, the goal and how much you’re starting with. It will tell you how many days you have, how much you need to save per day and then a graph on the right to show if you’re ahead of behind your saving goal.
Merchant Check
Want to look at how many times you go to McDonalds? How your coffee habits have changed with a lockdown?
Select your merchant from the drop down and it will give you a list of the important info related to that transaction and plot it on a graph so you can have some #datavis
Graphs
This started off with just #MegaPulse and then I’ve added more and more until I’m not sure if they are of any use or not :shrug:
This shows your balance from day 1 of your Monzo account.
There’s a tracker for your chosen savings pot (The one you named in the set-up tab)
Spend per month
Card payments per month
On the compare tab, this is just a repeat of your comparative months.
Then the two graphs you’ve set for your Pot Goals.
And I think that’s about it. There’s various helper columns and helper cells dotted around, so if you see a cell with text in and it’s white, it’s probably helping with something else.
Please feel free to amend how you see fit and if there’s anything that you think it needs, I’ll see what I can do!
