How to track freelance income and expenses in a spreadsheet
· 4 min read
To track freelance income and expenses in a spreadsheet, keep two separate sheets, one for money in and one for money out, add one row per transaction, and build a third sheet that sums both by month. Fill in the rows weekly and the monthly profit takes care of itself.
The rest of this guide gives you the exact columns, the formulas and a routine you can keep up when you are busy with client work.
What columns does an income sheet need?
Create a sheet called "Income" with these columns, in this order:
| Column | Example |
|---|---|
| Invoice date | 2026-03-04 |
| Client | Northwind Studio |
| Project | Website copy |
| Invoice number | 2026-017 |
| Amount invoiced | 1,200 |
| Platform or payment fees | 36 |
| Status | Paid / Unpaid |
| Date received | 2026-03-18 |
Two choices here save you trouble later.
Record the invoice amount and the fees separately. If a marketplace or payment service keeps 36 out of a 1,200 invoice, you received 1,164. The 36 is a business expense, not a smaller invoice. Writing only 1,164 hides the cost and makes your income look lower than it was.
Keep the date received. Many freelancers are taxed on money received, others on money invoiced. The rule depends on your country and your tax status, so ask a local accountant which one applies to you. If you store both dates, you can report either way.
What columns does an expense sheet need?
Create a second sheet called "Expenses":
- Date
- Supplier
- Description
- Category
- Amount
- Deductible? (Yes / No / Partly)
- Receipt saved? (Yes / No)
Keep the category list short, around eight to twelve: software, equipment, internet and phone, workspace, travel, training, marketing, professional services, bank and platform fees, other. Make the Category column a dropdown (Data → Data validation → List from a range) so you never end up with "Software", "software" and "Softwares" as three different categories.
The "Deductible?" column matters because only some costs reduce your taxable profit, and the rules differ between countries. Mark your best guess as you go, then let your accountant correct it once a year.
Which three formulas do you need?
Add a third sheet called "Summary" with one row per month. You need three formulas. Assume the amount is in column E of both sheets, the expense date is in column A of Expenses, the date received is in column H of Income, and the month's first day is in cell A2 of Summary.
Income for the month (by date received):
=SUMIFS(Income!E:E, Income!H:H, ">="&A2, Income!H:H, "<"&EDATE(A2,1))
Expenses for the month:
=SUMIFS(Expenses!E:E, Expenses!A:A, ">="&A2, Expenses!A:A, "<"&EDATE(A2,1))
Profit: income minus expenses.
If you also track platform fees on the Income sheet, add them to the expenses figure. These formulas work the same way in Excel and Google Sheets.
A worked example
Say that in March you received three payments: 1,164, 800 and 2,000. That is 3,964 in income. Your expenses were 49 for software, 120 for a co-working day pass and 36 for a training course, so 205 in total.
Profit for March is 3,964 − 205 = 3,759.
If you set aside 22% for tax on profit, as described in our guide on how much a freelancer should set aside for taxes, that is about 827. The amount you can safely spend is what remains, 2,932. Add a fourth column to the Summary sheet for the tax set-aside so you see this number every month rather than once a year.
How do you keep unpaid invoices visible?
Income you are owed is not income you have. Add a conditional-formatting rule on the Income sheet: if Status is "Unpaid" and the invoice date is more than 30 days ago, colour the row amber. A glance at the sheet then shows who to chase.
Keep unpaid invoices out of your monthly income figure. Count them only once the money arrives, and you will never plan around cash you do not have.
What routine keeps the sheet accurate?
Spreadsheets fail because entries pile up, not because the formulas break. Use a short weekly habit:
- Pick a fixed time, for example Friday afternoon.
- Add every payment received this week to the Income sheet.
- Add every expense. Photograph or save the receipt in a folder named by month, and tick "Receipt saved".
- Mark paid invoices as "Paid" and fill in the date received.
- Look at the Summary sheet for 30 seconds. Does profit look about right?
That takes ten minutes. At the end of the year, you have twelve tidy months and a folder of receipts, which is exactly what an accountant or a tax office asks for.
Common mistakes
- Mixing personal and business spending. Use a separate account or card for business if you can. If not, add a "Personal" tag and exclude it.
- Deleting rows. If an entry was wrong, add a correcting row or mark it void. A history you can trace is worth more than a neat one.
- Tracking income only. Revenue feels good, but only profit pays you.
- Stopping in a busy month. Missing one month is harder to repair than adding fifteen minutes.
Build it yourself or start from a template
Everything above can be built in an evening. If you would rather start with the sheets, dropdowns, monthly summary and charts already working, a ready-made tracker saves that evening. The one below follows the structure in this guide.