Spreadsheet Error Fixed

There was an error in our budgeting spreadsheet that is now fixed. Please download the updated version! (It should end with “2023-1-28” or later) We are grateful to users who give us feedback and find mistakes we never knew were there. Read more to see what was fixed.

One of our wonderful users gave us some feedback a few days ago that they were seeing something odd happening in our budget spreadsheet. Here’s what they did:

They had 2 paychecks marked as “Every Other Week”. They start on alternating Friday’s so they are set up to get a check every week.

The problem was that when they went to the “Adjust Cashflow” tab, they were seeing this:

That’s not right! The check they should have been seeing on the 10th was being moved to the 17th and added to the first check. So the paycheck was there, but on the wrong date.

I looked into this and found that the same issue also happened when you have 2 or more weekly paychecks. The other options all worked fine. The formulas causing this error have been in the spreadsheet since I first made it over 10 years ago. I’ve just never had 2 sources on income on the same weekly or every other week schedule. And even though I test a lot, I never tested out this scenario.

The good news is that it is fixed now. All of our links have been updated to point to the new version of the spreadsheet (ending in “2023-1-28” or later). We also made some other updates to the design and look.

• You can now adjust the currency symbol. We added Euro, Pound, Real, Rupee, and Philippine Peso.
• Fixed expenses can be sorted now. Moving things around used to require copy and pasting. Now you can use the dropdown arrow on the top and sort on any column.
• We added a next steps tab at the end. Because our spreadsheet is different than most, there was some confusion over where to enter your weekly numbers or track what you were doing. It is more clear now that we suggest using the free version of the GoodBudget app for tracking your Happy Money. There is also a video tutorial here on how to get that set up.

We are thankful to everyone who has been using the spreadsheet and giving us feedback! Hopefully the updates will be helpful as you try to find happiness in budgeting!