How to use OneNote for tracking expenses and budgeting

Why use OneNote for budgets and expense tracking?

There are a few advantages to using OneNote for expense tracking and budgets rather than separate programs or specialized apps for each. While you can make a basic budget in OneNote by inserting a table, and OneNote can do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems for you, you also have the option of linking to an Excel spreadsheet and doing more intense budget analysis in there. So even if you decide not to fully utilize OneNote for budgeting purposes, OneNote can serve as the organizational hub for your financial planning. Here’s some other reasons to try using OneNote to keep track of your spending on a regular basis.

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• OneNote is free with M365 subscription. Rather than finding a whole separate program for your expenses and paying a separate software or subscription cost, discover what you can do with OneNote, which is included in your M365 subscription.
• Easily correlate your budget and expense needs with the rest of your life. If you’re already using OneNote as a to-do list and a planner, cross-referencing your budget before you go buy groceries or those concert tickets just got a little bit easier. All of your important information is in one place that you’re very familiar with, so you’ll know exactly where to look when needed, and this can help foster those spending and savings habits you want.
• You can update your notebook on the go. Not only can you sit down at your desktop to go over your monthly expenditures, but you can also take notes while you’re out and about with your tablet or smartphone—perfect for keeping track about how much you’re spending each day or in specific places and if any unexpected, unplanned expenses pop up.
• Share with family members and colleagues. OneNote’s cloud storage means that not only can you access your budget and expense notebook from anywhere, but you can share it with those who need to know what’s going on moneywise in your household or business. Collaborate on budget ideas, easily consult your budget goals, or upload receipts to a shared notebook or tab. Remember that you can also password protect certain notebooks to limit as well as facilitate access to more sensitive and personal information.
• It’s easy to include receipt files in your notebook. Collecting receipts for reimbursement or tax purposes? If you have OneNote on your smartphone, simply snap a photo of the receipt, and the details should automatically populate with OCR text reading. For a more low-tech list, you can also scan your receipts and link the image file to the relevant date or purchase. Tax professionals recommend storing the last seven years of receipts when it comes to business purposes, and rather than finding a physical place to put all that paper, you can simply keep an easy-to-use digital record in the cloud.
• OneNote is customizable for you. Unlike just a mere spreadsheet, OneNote can be a place where you jot down ideas and observations, such as things you’re looking forward to buying, dates of a certain sale, or times of year you notice expenses rising or prices dropping. You can also upload bank and credit card statements as PDFs if you need to pore over them as you plan out your monthly budget, or even link your account login pages for easy reference. If you’re not a spreadsheet person, feel free to list all your expenses in the body of your notebook—but remember that you’re always welcome to embed links to whatever Microsoft program helps corral the information you need, including Excel and Word.

With these benefits in mind, when it comes to budgeting, why not give OneNote a try? And for a free and simple way to store mountains of expense receipts, OneNote can’t be beat.