Monzo Plus: export to Google Sheets - feedback and thoughts after a couple of weeks of use

So some time ago in a sale frenzy I bought Emma Pro for a year (I think it was 70% off at the time). - and just went back to look if they have a data export.

Turns out they do - and it captures all accounts you connect to as one stream. It’s not live, which is a shame, and Pots aren’t handled in the best way possible - but this would be a good version of what one “omni stream” looks like. I may at least use this as a source for my other connected account data in my Dashboard, at least until my subscription at Emma ends.

If you could merge the best bits of Emma’s and the best bits of Monzo, it would be one super tool.

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@edo1493 Time to buy Monzo :+1:

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LoL.

We should be able to add export to Google Sheets. :wink:

ps: we have also added Accurate Net Worth + the fastest category editing you have ever seen over the weekend (in Emma Pro).

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Seems there are many budgeting apps that will export a CSV file - MDB, who I currently use for instance. The problem there is the L1 and L2 tags [categories of transaction type according to MDB] that they assign to each transaction have to be edited - or added. Then the CSV data needs to be imported to the spreadsheet app of your choice. This used to be my process each month. I gave up. I am waiting for Money in Excel to come to the UK :weary:

Download CSV for the last month from MDB
Import into Numbers [usually, I have used Sheets and Excel - the process is similar]
Adjust the supplied categories to match your expectations
Delete - or hide - the ones you know you will never use
DIscover that one or two are incorrect and adjust again
Discover that you have far too many categories to make sense of your Spending
Create new category to capture little things - perhaps House
Create another new category to capture one-offs - perhaps Garden
Merge others so that your spreadsheet is not 2 yards long
Manually input that data into another spreadsheet that captures annual figures
Realise that none of it makes sense anymore - give up.
Get glass, ice, Gin, lemon & tonic

R-

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A very interesting thread. As a Product Manager (albeit in a different industry), there’s a useful warning about a “partially agile” approach. If you don’t iterate then all you’ll ever have is an uncompetitive Minimum Viable Product.

As a Monzo user, Monzo Plus seems either like a way of creating a lot of work for yourself or a way to save £5 a month.

I shall watch with interest to see how Plus develops.

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I’ve been busy manipulating the data from my Google sheet into this dashboard in excel. It’s a shame I have had to do this in the first place and (like others) I wish Monzo could do all this stuff in app to allow users to really track their finances month by month. Some of the stuff I’ve made on here (like the left to spend tile) is available in Monzo but is completely useless to me because I do most of my spending on Amex and you can’t currently connect Amex to Monzo and even if you could you can’t categorise those transactions. However, I’ve set up IFTTT to transfer Amex transactions into a pot which then shows up on my Google sheet and voila! I am dreading the day that Google sheet gets changed by Monzo and breaks my dashboard.

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Truly a thing of beauty. :two_hearts:

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How did you make it look so good!

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Can you guide us how to do this ?

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Stunning. Wow!

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That looks incredible.

If monzo offered something like that out the box then that would be worth the £5 a month.

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Here are the instructions I followed to connect my Google sheet with excel and then I manipulated the hell out of it in Power Query Editor in Excel. Mine was only so complicated because of how I handle my Amex transactions (transferring my spending to an Amex pot and then using hashtags in the notes as categories) but I’m sure it would be a lot simpler for most. Power Query was relatively easy to pick up with a bit of trial and error. Once you have your transactions in Excel, the World is your oyster when it comes to what you then do with that! Design wise, I made my background and the tiles that you can see in Adobe and then used it as a background in Excel, resizing the rows and columns to fit my data nicely.

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Thanks for sharing that - really interesting - hadnt considered there possibility of adding the data to excel!

I wonder if it also means I can use the same data in Power BI which is like Dashboarding dialled up to 11…

One to look into…

You sure can - Power BI also makes use of the Power Query editor but I’m really not familiar with Power BI hence why I opted to go the Excel route!

Brilliant. I would like to be able to categorise a pot transfer. That way you can categorise the transfer as whatever you spent on your Amex.

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If you’ll always add the category, you could do it with a helper column and a bit of a work around.

Why didn’t I think of that! Definitely going to design a nicer looking background for my dashboard. Thanks for the tip

Ahem, if anyone has a super simple document explaining how to do basic dashboards in Sheets I’d literally pay for it.

£5.00 a month.

Lookin’ at you, Monzo :kissing_heart:

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Not sure if this fits the bill for what you want (and it’s Excel rather than Sheets but for the most part the same logic applies)

But this site is a great resource for all that stuff: https://chandoo.org/wp/excel-dashboards/

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hi @BritishLibrary thanks for posting your review about exporting to google sheets. I don’t have Monzo Plus yet and thinking of upgrading just to be able to see data from all my bank accounts and cards.

Does data from joint / connected accounts get exported ?

I would like to see my exports from my HSBC credit card would that show up in the google sheet ?

thanks !