Setting up your list
Start with last month. Go through your bank and card statements, your inbox and any paper mail, and write down every bill that came due: housing, utilities, phone and internet, insurance, loan and card payments, and the subscriptions that renew on their own. Type them into the field above, one per line, or keep the example rows and rename them later in the spreadsheet.
Next to each bill, note the day of the month it is due. The printed page and the spreadsheet both have a Due day column for this. Sorting your lines by that day before you download turns the tracker into a calendar you read from top to bottom: the bill at the top is the next one to deal with.
Then fill in the amount due. Rent, loan payments and many plans charge the same amount each month, so you can copy them straight across. Utilities and cards change, so leave those blank until the statement arrives.
What goes in each column
| Column | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Bill | The name you recognize on the statement |
| Due day | Day of the month, from 1 to 31 |
| Amount due | What the statement or contract asks for |
| Amount paid | What you actually paid, even if it is a part payment |
| Paid on | The date the payment went out |
| Status (spreadsheet) or tick box (PDF) | Nothing to type: Paid or Open appears on its own, and on paper you tick the box |
| Left to pay | Filled in by a formula in the spreadsheet; on paper, amount due minus amount paid |
| Notes | Confirmation numbers, the account you paid from, a reminder to call |
Checking bills off
Pick one or two fixed moments a week to sit down with the list, for example the day after payday. Look at every bill whose due day falls before your next check, pay it, and write down the amount and date right away. On the printout, tick the box only once the money has really left your account, not when you schedule the payment.
A part payment gets its own line of thought: write what you paid, and the remainder shows up under Left to pay. In the spreadsheet the bill keeps the status Open until the amount paid reaches the amount due, so a half-paid bill never looks finished.
Bills on autopay
Keep automatic payments on the list too, marked in the Notes column. They are easy to forget precisely because you do nothing, and the amount can change from month to month. When the debit appears on your statement, fill in the amount and date as you would for any other bill. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tells people with automatic debits to watch their account and "make sure the amount and timing of the transfers are what you agreed to". A tracker with the expected amount next to the paid amount makes that comparison quick.
Reading the totals
The summary at the top of each month shows four numbers. Total due adds up every amount due. Total paid adds up what you have paid so far. Left to pay adds up the open remainder of each bill, so an overpaid bill counts as zero there and does not hide another bill that is still open. Bills paid reads like "6 of 9": six bills are fully paid out of the nine that have an amount due.
Early in the month, Left to pay is roughly the money your account still needs to cover. At the end of the month it should be zero; anything left points straight to the row that still needs attention. On the PDF you add the columns by hand and copy the sums into the boxes of the total row and the summary.
The 12-month version
Choose 12 months and a year to get one sheet per month, named Jan to Dec, with the month and year already in the title. A thirteenth sheet, Year, collects every month with formulas: total due, total paid, left to pay and the number of bills paid, plus what each bill was due and paid over the whole year. That last table reads the bill names from January and adds each row across all twelve sheets, so keep a bill in the same row on every month sheet. The PDF version prints the same months as twelve pages.
Related tools and templates
To see where your bills fit into your income, the budget planner splits take-home pay into needs, wants and savings, and the budget spreadsheet plans every category of a month or a year. The subscription cost tracker lists recurring charges with their monthly and yearly cost. For a power bill that keeps rising, the electricity cost calculator shows what each appliance costs to run. If card and loan payments take up much of the list, the debt snowball planner lays out a payoff order.
Frequently asked questions
Is the bill tracker free?
Yes. Download it as often as you want, for your own household or for a relative whose bills you help with. No account, no email address, no watermark. A single small line with our web address sits at the bottom of each sheet and page.
Why does a bill say Open?
Status shows Open as long as the amount paid is lower than the amount due, for example before you pay or after a partial payment. It switches to Paid once the amount paid reaches the amount due. While a row has no amount due, Status stays blank.
Can I add more bills to the spreadsheet?
Yes. The table has empty rows under your bills; type a new name into one of them. If you run out, insert a row above the Total row, inside the table, and the totals pick it up. In the 12-month file, do the same on every month sheet so each bill stays in the same row, because the Year sheet adds up the months row by row.
Why are some characters missing from my bill names in the PDF?
The PDF uses a basic font that covers English and most Western European letters, but no emoji and no other scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic or Chinese. Those characters are left out, a few rare accented letters print without the accent, and a note under the field tells you when that happens. The spreadsheet keeps your names exactly as typed.
Which currencies can I use?
Any of the 20 currencies in the list. The spreadsheet formats every amount in the one you pick, and the PDF names it under the title. To switch later, download the file again, or change the number format of the amount cells in your spreadsheet program.
What does the year version give me?
Twelve month sheets with the month and year already filled in, plus a Year sheet that adds them up: totals per month and what each bill cost over the year. The PDF has one page per month. Pick 2026, 2027 or 2028 as the year.