How I Made an Expense Tracker in Notion + Free Template

A step-by-Step method to make an effective expense tracker that will make your life a bit less confusing

Notion Expense Tracker + Free Template

Notion is an application that provides components such as databases, kanban boards, wikis, calendars, and reminders. Users can connect these components to create their own systems for knowledge management, note-taking, data management, project management, among others.

I use Notion for multiple purposes due to its ability to adapt to the needs. It's a flexible database system that can change between several views without losing the contents opens up new possibilities for task management.

I have tried to make an efficient expense tracker that can help us keep our spending as well as earning monitored, without having the hassle to jot it down, run calculations, or make a mess.

What do we need?

My goal was to make a system that can carry both income and expenditure and contain the details of the purchase and transactions efficiently and effectively. The first thing to think before starting a new page is what the necessities for the task are. To track our expenses, I found the core elements to be these:

1. Name — What or for what the expense/earning was made on
2. Date — The date of transaction
3. Income/Expense — The amount that was transacted
4. Account — The method of the transaction(eg. bank account)
5. Receipt — Some sort of digital proof, or an image of the physical receipt
6. To/From — The organization where the transaction took place

These are good enough data to get started with, but one can always make additions as he/she pleases.

How to make it?

Well glad you asked. Now that we have the idea for what we want let's make it.

Step 1 — Creating the page

1. Click on the + icon on a line and select ‘page’
2. Name the table “Expense Tracker” or anything of your liking.
3. Press Enter

Step 2 — Creating the table

1. Click on the + on the new line, but this time scroll down or search and choose table - inline
2. The name column will remain for the title

Step 3 — Date Column

1. Click on the tags on the table, and rename it as date
2. Hover over property type and change it to date

Step 4 — Income/Expense Columns

1. Click on the + on the table, and name it expense
2. Hover over property type and change it to number
3. Click on the column name and format number. Change it to the currency of your choice.
4. Repeat the same for another column, but this time name it income

Step 5— Account Column

1. Click on the + on the table, and name it Account
2. Hover over property type and change it to Select

Step 6— Receipt Column

1. Click on the + on the table, and name it receipt
2. Hover over property type and change it to Files & media

Step 7— To/From Column

1. Click on the + on the table, and name it To/From

Step 8— Calculations

1. At the bottom of Expense click on the calculate and change it to Sum
2. At the bottom of Income click on the calculate and change it to Sum

How to use

It's simple — just add a name, then select the date, add the amount in either the income or expense section based on what it is, choose the bank account, type the place related to the transaction and just embed the receipt.

I’m Too Lazy For That!

Well, don’t worry, I have the right thing for you. I have made a template, all you got to do is open it, click on duplicate — there you go, your very own expense tracker.

Click for the free notion template here

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