Spreadsheet or a net worth tracker?
Most people who track their net worth start in a spreadsheet, and plenty should stay there. This is a straight account of where the spreadsheet stops working, from someone whose app started as one.
What the spreadsheet is genuinely better at
Arbitrary structure. If your finances have an unusual shape — a business, a shared property with a specific split, a bespoke tax situation — a spreadsheet models it in ten minutes and no app will ever have a field for it.
It is also free, it is yours, it works forever, and nobody can discontinue it. Those are real advantages and it is worth saying so before the sales pitch.
Where it stops scaling
- Currencies: converting each month at that month’s rate, across a five-year history, is where most multi-currency spreadsheets quietly become wrong
- Charts: every new view is manual work, so you build three and never build the fourth
- Market prices: either you paste them in monthly or you rely on a formula that breaks
- Formula rot: one bad row reference in month 14 propagates silently for years
- Mobile: entering a balance on a phone in a spreadsheet is genuinely unpleasant, so you stop doing it
Side by side
| Spreadsheet | Totala | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Free |
| Setup | An afternoon, then ongoing | Minutes |
| Multi-currency history | Manual, error-prone | Automatic |
| Market prices | Manual or fragile formulas | Automatic |
| New charts | Build each one | Built in, plus custom sections |
| Phone entry | Painful | Designed for it |
| Arbitrary structure | Anything you can model | Fixed set of asset types |
| Your data | A file you own | Exportable at any time |
You do not have to choose immediately
Export your spreadsheet as a CSV and import it. The generic column mapper will read most hand-built sheets, so your history comes with you rather than starting over at zero — which is the thing that usually kills the switch.
Common questions
Can I bring my spreadsheet history over?
Yes. Export it as CSV and use the generic importer, which asks you which column is the date, the amount and so on. Duplicate detection means a second attempt is safe if the first mapping was wrong.
Can I keep using both?
Plenty of people do for a while — the spreadsheet for the odd corners, the app for the monthly number. Full export means you are never stuck in one.
Bring your history with you
Import a CSV and the charts are useful on the first day rather than in a year.
How importing works