Free Google Sheets bookkeeping template
Income and expenses in plain rows, one per transaction, with a Summary tab that totals each month and the year. Etsy deposits arrive with the fees already taken out, so log the full sale as income and the fees as an expense, and the month you see is the real one. It opens in Google Sheets or Excel, and the record is tidy enough to hand to whoever does your taxes.
The Summary tab, from the sample data in the download
| Month | Income | Expenses | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| August | $150.00 | $35.00 | $115.00 |
| September | $775.55 | $201.42 | $574.13 |
Three September payouts and three September expense rows, bucketed by month automatically. A month that loses money shows its net in red.
Free. One email with the download, then occasional updates. Unsubscribe any time.
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Twenty minutes a week beats a weekend in January
The shoebox isn't a discipline problem. It's that entering receipts feels pointless while you're doing it, because there's no reward until the year ends and suddenly there's a very large one. What changes it is seeing the answer come back straight away. You type six rows on a Sunday, look at the Summary, and September says $574.13 net. That's the first time the shop has told you how it's doing, and after that the weekly sitting stops feeling like admin.
You don't have to log every single order, either. One row per payout, or one per market day, is enough to see the shape of the month and takes minutes. Per-order rows give you more detail, but only if you'll actually keep them up. Either is fine, and you can change your mind at the start of any month.
What's in the file
Four tabs · rename categories to match your shop
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Tab 1
Categories Two dropdown lists, one for money in and one for money out. Rename them once and Summary follows.You type · your labels
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Tab 2
Income One row per payout, market day or order: date, what it was, category, amount.You type · money in
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Tab 3
Expenses Same shape for everything you paid for: materials, fees, postage, software.You type · money out
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Tab 4
Summary Set the year once. Each month's in, out and net fills in, with losses in red.Calculates · month truth
Set it up
- Open the file. In Google Sheets, go to File, then Import, then Upload, and choose Replace spreadsheet.
- Rename the categories to match your shop, and delete the sample rows in Income and Expenses. Leave the Summary tab and the narrow Month key column alone, because those two work themselves out.
- Set the year at the top of Summary.
- From then on, write things down as they happen, or in one sitting each week. Read the Summary at the end of the month.
How it works underneath (you never need this)
Each ledger row carries a Month key, a small formula that reads the YEAR and MONTH off the date so the row lands in the right bucket. The Summary is SUMIFS over both ledgers: every month cell filters the rows by that key and the matching category, and the year row adds the twelve months. It's single-entry (one transaction, one row, one ledger), which is what a small shop needs and what an accountant can work from. Everything is a formula the two apps share, wrapped in IFERROR so an unfinished row reads blank, with bounded ranges rather than whole columns so a 1,000-row file stays quick. No scripts, nothing to break, and you can click any cell and see where its number came from.
If clients pay you against invoices, the free invoice template writes the invoice and tracks who's paid; each payment then becomes one income row here. If you also hold stock, the free inventory template tracks what's on the shelf and what each product earns. Platform fees vs what hits the bank: free Etsy fees vs take-home calculator. Freelancers parking tax: free tax set-aside sheet (not tax advice). If you'd rather build your inventory tracker than download one, the step-by-step guide walks through it.
What records to keep
Keep a row for every sale, every fee and every expense, with its date, a plain description of what it was, and a category. Keep the receipts and the platform statements behind those rows somewhere you can find them again. That's the whole of it: if money moved, it's in the sheet, it's dated, and there's paper behind it.
What you owe and what you can deduct depend on where you are and how your business is set up, so those calls belong to your accountant, not the spreadsheet. Bring them a complete, dated, categorized ledger and their answers get faster and cheaper.
Questions
Does it work in Excel too?
Yes. It's an .xlsx file using only formulas that Google Sheets and Excel share (SUM, SUMIFS, IF, YEAR, MONTH). In Google Sheets, use File, then Import, then Upload, and choose Replace spreadsheet. In Excel, open it directly.
Is this enough for my taxes?
It's the record, not the return. The sheet keeps a clean, dated, categorized history of money in and money out, which is exactly what your accountant or tax authority asks for. What's deductible, what you owe and what to file are their questions, not the spreadsheet's; bringing them a tidy ledger just makes the answers faster and cheaper.
What categories should I use?
The dropdowns ship with plain shop categories: materials, packaging, postage, platform fees, software, marketing. Rename them on the Categories tab to match how you actually think about your shop; the summary follows automatically. If a category exists only for tax reasons, ask your accountant how they'd like it split before inventing your own scheme.
How do I handle platform fees and payouts?
Pick one rule and keep it. The simplest accurate one: log the full sale amount as income, and log the platform's fees as their own expense rows — because the deposit that lands in your bank is already net of fees, and that is where handmade sellers lose the thread of their real numbers. Pull fee figures from the platform's own statements, not from memory.
Should I log every order or one row per payout?
Whatever you'll actually keep up. One row per payout or market day is enough for the monthly picture and takes minutes a week; per-order rows give you more detail but only help if you maintain them. The formulas don't care either way, and you can switch rules at any month boundary.
How many rows does it hold?
1,000 rows in each ledger. For more, copy the last formula row of the Month key column down, or start a fresh copy of the file each year, which also keeps each year's records self-contained.
Is it really free?
Yes. Enter your email and the file arrives in your inbox; that's the whole exchange. No card, no trial, no locked tabs. The spreadsheet is the complete product, and it's yours to keep, copy and reuse.
Is this real double-entry bookkeeping?
No. Each thing that happens is one line in one list, which is what a small shop needs to see where the money goes and to hand an accountant clean records. If your business has grown to where it needs double-entry books, that's accounting-software territory, and your accountant is the one to say when you're there.
Can it pull sales from Etsy or Shopify automatically?
No. It's a plain spreadsheet with no scripts or add-ons, so nothing syncs by itself. You enter rows yourself, working from your platform's own payout or order reports; a short weekly sitting keeps it current. Manual entry is the trade-off for a file you fully control and can open anywhere.
Also useful
- Invoice templateBill clients; log payments into this ledger.
- Inventory templateStock on hand and per-unit profit after fees.
- Etsy fees vs take-homeWhat one order deposits after fees.
- Tax set-aside sheetPut estimated tax aside as you get paid.
Updated