Brief & Bill / Free guides

Freelance expense tracker spreadsheet: a free template, categories and formulas

If your business expenses live in your bank app, your inbox and a shoebox of receipts, a simple expense tracker brings them into one place. It takes about ten minutes a week once it is set up.

This guide covers the columns worth having, common categories for solo freelancers, a free printable log and the formulas to total things up by month and by category.

This is general organizing help, not tax or accounting advice. What counts as a business expense, how long you must keep receipts and how much to set aside for tax all depend on where you live and how your business is set up. Check with an accountant or tax professional where you work.

The columns you need

• Date you paid
• Supplier, the company or person you paid
• Description, in a few words, so you remember what it was in six months
• Category, picked from a drop-down list so the totals work
• Amount you paid, including any sales tax or VAT shown on the receipt
• Paid with: business card, personal card, bank transfer
• Client or project, if the cost belongs to one job and you might pass it on
• Receipt saved? Yes or no
• Notes, for anything your accountant might ask about

If you charge sales tax or VAT and your accountant wants it separately, add a column for the tax amount. If not, keep it simple.

Common categories for solo freelancers

Use categories that match how you work and that your accountant recognizes. Around ten is plenty. These are a common starting set:

• Software and subscriptions
• Equipment (laptop, camera, monitor)
• Phone and internet
• Office supplies and printing
• Coworking or workspace
• Travel to clients
• Training, courses and books
• Professional fees (accountant, lawyer, bank fees)
• Marketing and website
• Insurance
• Subcontractors
• Other (check with your accountant)

Whether each one can be claimed, and how, is a question for your accountant. The tracker's job is to make sure nothing is missing when you ask.

Formulas for Google Sheets or Excel

Put the log on a tab called Expenses with dates in column A, categories in column D and amounts in column E. On a second tab, list your categories down column A and months across row 1 (as the first day of each month, for example 1/1/2027).

• Spend in one category for one month: =SUMIFS(Expenses!E:E,Expenses!D:D,$A2,Expenses!A:A,">="&B$1,Expenses!A:A,"<"&EDATE(B$1,1))
• Total for the year in one category: =SUMIF(Expenses!D:D,A2,Expenses!E:E)
• Expenses with no receipt saved: =COUNTIF(Expenses!H:H,"No")
• Spend on one client project: =SUMIF(Expenses!G:G,"Client name",Expenses!E:E)

Make the Category column a drop-down (Data, Data validation) that points to your category list. Typing categories by hand leads to "Software", "software" and "Sofware", and the totals stop adding up.

An example week

Here is what one week might look like for a freelance copywriter. The amounts are made up, just to show the level of detail that is useful.

The book receipt is missing, so the No receipt count shows 1. That is the reminder to find the email confirmation before it gets buried.

Costs that are partly personal

Some costs are used for both work and home life, such as a phone plan, internet or a laptop. Log them in full, add a note such as "also personal use", and ask your accountant how to treat them. Rules on splitting these costs differ a lot between countries, so do not guess. A clear note now saves a long search later.

At the end of the year

• Every month has its rows, with no gaps
• The No receipt count is zero, or each missing receipt has a note explaining why
• Category totals for the year are on one summary tab
• Costs passed on to clients have been invoiced
• A copy of the file and the receipts folder is saved somewhere safe
• You have sent your accountant whatever they asked for, in the format they prefer

A ten-minute weekly routine

1. Open your business bank account and card statements for the past week.
2. Add each business payment as a row in the log.
3. Find the receipt or invoice, save it in one folder, and name the file with the date and supplier, for example 2027-01-14 hosting company.pdf.
4. Mark Receipt saved as Yes.
5. Check the No receipt count and chase anything missing while it is still easy to find.

Once a month, glance at the totals by category. Subscriptions are the usual surprise: small monthly charges for tools you stopped using.

Tips

• Use a separate bank account or card for business costs if you can. It makes the weekly routine much faster.
• Keep receipts digitally and back up the folder. Ask your accountant how long you need to keep them where you live.
• Log costs you pass on to clients in the Project column, so you remember to add them to the invoice.
• Do not mix in income. Keep invoices and payments on their own tab or in your invoice tracker.