Welcome to the Tiller Foundations Guide. Use this guide as a self paced resource for building a strong financial foundation with Tiller.
Mostly likely you've already started a free trial, but if not, sign up at www.tiller.com/pricing
Table of Contents
Tiller Tip 5: See all your account balances organized your way
Tiller Tip 6: Explore the perfect solution for you
Tiller Tip 7: Gaining clarity and staying confident
Step 1: See everything in one place
Now that you’ve started a trial you can connect all your financial accounts to Tiller and easily start seeing spending and balances for all your accounts in one place. You can add all types of accounts including credit cards, investments, loans, and more.
How to connect financial institutions to Tiller
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Click "Add accounts" - we use Yodlee & Plaid as our secure data aggregation partners.
Search for your financial institution and select it from the list.
Enter your username and password for the institution. The same username and password you'd use to log in to the account directly online.
Once successfully added you should see the institution name and a list of accounts appear on the Console under the Account Summary.
Troubleshooting account connection issues
If you have issues connecting a financial account, review our guide here and keep going with the next steps for accounts you can connect.
If you can't find your account when searching or run into an error, just exit the connection window and you'll be shown an option to try with the backup data partner.
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Step 2: Dive into ultimate control of your money
Once you have connected accounts to Tiller you’re ready to create your first spreadsheet and dive into the most powerful way to see, know, and manage your money.
How to create your first spreadsheet:
Login to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Choose "Start with Google Sheets" or "Start with Microsoft Excel"
We recommend Google Sheets. If you're undecided, check out this guide.
Follow the prompts
If you want to see the accounts you've connected or apply account nicknames before creating your first spreadsheet visit: https://my.tiller.com/accounts
After you've created your first spreadsheet you'll be able to access the rest of the Console's features, add more accounts, set up Hello, Money, and create additional spreadsheets.
How to find your spreadsheet later
After you've linked your first spreadsheet to Tiller its name will appear in the left side navigation on the Tiller Console (https://my.tiller.com).
Google Sheets are stored on your Google Drive. You can click a Google Sheet's name on the Tiller Console and click the "Open Sheet" button in the upper right after you select a spreadsheet in the left side navigation.
Microsoft Excel workbooks are usually stored locally on your computer or on OneDrive. You can open the workbook from the location where you saved it after downloading the Foundation Template.
Troubleshooting
If you're having trouble with the "Authorize Sheets" step, check out the guidance here.
Not comfortable with the "All Sheets" permission? Check out the Advanced Security feature.
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Tiller Tip 1: Keep your data flowing
You want a tidy place to check in on your spending. Making sure the data is reliably in that spot each day is crucial for building financial confidence.
Tiller can automatically refresh many accounts behind the scenes about once a day and if you're using Google Sheets your data will fill into your spreadsheet automatically* after a refresh finishes.
You also may need to manually refresh some connections if the institution enforces two factor authentication (2FA) or has disabled our ability to automatically refresh.
*Sidebar Fills Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel workbooks still require you to fill the data using the Tiller Money Feeds sidebar. If you're using Google Sheets, upgrade to Direct Fills for automatic fills.
How to refresh your accounts:
Log in in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Click Accounts in the left side navigation
Use the Refresh Accounts button to refresh all eligible accounts or click "refresh" next to individual accounts that haven't recently refreshed.
ℹ️ Plaid accounts can only be refreshed manually using the Refresh Accounts button. Plaid connections do not have a individual Refresh button.
Hello, Money
A great way to stay in tune with your spending is to opt in to Hello, Money. Get your latest spending, transactions, and balances delivered to your Tiller-subscribed email each morning. You can also send to up to 3 additional recipients.
By default you'll be opted in to receive refresh information only about your connected institutions. If you'd like to receive your latest transactions and balances for individual accounts you can configure those settings on the Tiller Console.
Click the Hello, Money option in the left side navigation to customize or opt out of the Refresh Only version. Learn more
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Tiller Tip 2: Control your categories like never before
Tired of those generic categories that don't fit your lifestyle or are hard to edit? Now you can organize your spending just the way you want.
To keep it simple the Foundation Template comes pre-filled with a few common categories and groups you can immediately start using to categorize your transactions. If you don’t want to spend the time thinking too much about what categories to use we recommend you start categorizing with these.
If like most spreadsheet nerds you want ultimate control over your categories you can easily customize them to fit your unique needs. Modifying your categories list on the Categories sheet allows you to be as broad or as granular as you need for your financial situation.
You’re not locked into our example categories or groups.
Repurpose any of the example categories by typing over them.
We recommend keeping it simple.
Categories should be unique (no duplicates).
Each category should be assigned to a group in the Group column.
The only supported category types are Income, Expense, and Transfer. Please don’t add custom Types to the data validation, it will break other sheets.
If you’re unsure of how to group things, just stick with our example groups as a start and clear any that don’t apply.
Don't worry about the month columns E through P just yet. We'll get to those later.
We recommend a simple structure for your categories and groups because it's easier to remember as you’re categorizing and the more likely you’ll stick with it in the long run.
How to customize your categories:
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Open your Tiller-powered Foundation Template spreadsheet
Microsoft Excel workbooks may be stored on your OneDrive or locally on your computer, the Tiller Console will display the name of linked workbooks, but there isn't a way to open them from the Tiller Console.
Navigate to the Categories sheet (tab along the bottom)
Overwrite any categories that don’t apply by typing over them in column A
Double check the Group in column B to see if the group still makes sense. Overwrite these too.
Double check the Type in column C to make sure these match the category type. Read more about Transfers here.
Add new categories to the bottom of the list (you can sort later) rather than inserting new rows for new categories.
How to categorize transactions:
Navigate to the Transactions sheet (tab along the bottom)
Use the dropdown menu in the Category column to assign a category to the transaction or automate using AutoCat (read on for details!)
Using AutoCat to automatically categorize transactions
AutoCat for Google Sheets now offers Description Match & AI Suggest in addition to Rules to help you quickly categorize your transactions. Categorize a few examples of common merchants and let AutoCat do the rest.
If you're using Microsoft Excel, you get all the power of AutoCat Rules, but Description Match & AI Suggest are not yet available for Excel.
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Tiller Tip 3: Find out how much you actually spent
“Where is my money going?” That’s the million dollar question, right? Maybe you’re also wondering, “Can we afford to buy that new house?” “Will we survive on one income?” “When can I retire?”
The biggest key in knowing how much you’re spending and whether your financial goals can be reality is putting in the effort to categorize your transactions.
You can do this manually, and you will learn a lot just with that exercise, (it’s well worth the time!) or you can have AutoCat help.
You don’t need to categorize all the historical data in your Transactions sheet. You can categorize this week or this month and go forward. The more you categorize, the more insights and awareness you’ll build.
If you want to start budgeting, and are unsure what your spending targets should be, we recommend categorizing last month up to today. In our next tip, we’ll explore where to set those budget targets.
How to review your spending:
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Open Tiller spreadsheet
If you haven't already be sure to categorize some transactions so there are spending insights available to review
Navigate to the Spending Trends sheet (tab along the bottom)
Explore the insights available in this sheet to understand your spending (read more below)
Customize the start & end date for the Spending Trends to narrow in on a specific time period.
Use the controls to the right to customize your donut chart.
Choose a category in the Simple Transaction Lookup to inspect transactions for a specific category.
Get a quick Net Cash Flow calculation.
If it’s emotionally hard to see your spending in one place because you haven’t done this before, pretend these are a friend’s accounts, not yours. This will help you be a more objective and kind observer.
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Tiller Tip 4: Keep your money on track
It doesn’t matter if money is abundant or scarce in your life, budgeting can be a helpful learning experience that guides you toward the adjustments you need to make to help you achieve your financial goals.
The Foundation Template makes it easy to set up a simple 12-month budget in minutes and quickly gain insights about your cash flow.
How to set up a budget:
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Open your Tiller sheet
Navigate to the Categories sheet (tab along the bottom)
Enter budget amounts into column E for each category
Adjust individual months as needed by editing the category amount for that month and the next month if it doesn't need that adjustment.
Click on the Monthly Budget sheet (tab along the bottom) and review your budgets, actuals, and available for each category. Note, you may need to select the current or appropriate month using the dropdown option in the top right of the sheet.
Click on the Yearly Budget sheet to get the big picture view of your entire year by scrolling right to review each month.
Adjust your Budget targets on the Categories sheet as needed
Review your monthly budget sheet weekly to see how you’re doing. The planned cash flow in the top left shows what you’d have left over if everything goes according to plan. The cash flow to date is most helpful at the close of the month to see how you actually did.
Review the Available column on the Monthly Budget sheet to see how much is available for any category at any point during the month. This is your budget minus your actual spending. If it's a positive number that means there is money available to spend in this category. If it's negative and red, it means you've spent more than you budgeted and you should try to hold off on spending more in this category.
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Tiller Tip 5: See all your account balances organized your way
You probably have various accounts of all types scattered across the internet at several different institutions. What would it be like to see all those organized neatly in one place? How about not having to log in to all those individual sites every time you want to see a balance?
Organize your accounts:
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
Open your Tiller-powered Foundation Template spreadsheet
Navigate to the Accounts sheet (tab along the bottom)
Select an account from the dropdown menu in Column A
Assign it to a group by typing it into the Group column
You don't need to assign a class to your accounts unless it's displaying incorrectly on the Balances sheet (e.g. an asset is showing up under liabilities).
Navigate to the Balances sheet (tab along the bottom) to review.
Common groups for accounts are things like “Credit cards, Checking, Investments, Kids College” and the like.
Think of the Balances sheet as your financial scorecard. If this is the first time you’re seeing everything in one place, it can be exciting, but maybe also daunting. Don’t be discouraged if you’re faced with the reality of debt here. Use it as a motivator to help you build a plan around getting out of debt.
If there are accounts that Tiller can't automate you can track the balance manually using the Tiller Money Feeds add-on. Read more on how to do that here.
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Tiller Tip 6: Explore the perfect solution for you
Install the Tiller Money Feeds add-on to access more features right from your spreadsheet including template access, splitting transactions, running AutoCat while in your sheet and more.
So many personal finance tools and apps out there try to box you into their way of doing things. Tiller gives you the control to understand your money your way. The power of a spreadsheet is its unlimited flexibility and that means endless possibilities.
We recommend the Foundation Template as the default because it’s easy to understand, set up, and use. From there you can build on top of your Foundation, adding templates based on your specific financial goals.
Tiller offers several officially-supported templates you can layer on top of your Foundation Template that can be installed using Tiller Money Feeds. Just look for the Templates section toward the bottom of the sidebar.
Debt Payoff Planner
If you're interested in using Tiller to help payoff your debt, check out the Debt Payoff Planner.
Savings Goal Tracker
Track your savings towards specific goals on a per account basis with the Savings Goal Tracker.
Simple P&L
Leverage a simple but powerful profit and loss report to understand your monthly spend, income, and cashflow. Even if your not running a business this is a powerful template for personal budgeting insights. Learn more.
Community Solutions
Beyond the Tiller-supported templates there are many options from builders in the Tiller Community to help you level up your Foundation Template based on your financial goals and needs. Community templates are built and supported by the Tiller Community. You can install some of these solutions directly from Tiller Money Feeds, which are labeled with the community badge.
Community-built solutions for Microsoft Excel:
You can also explore solutions directly in the Community for Microsoft Excel and install them manually via the instructions in the community topic.
Community-built solutions for Google Sheets:
You can also explore solutions directly in the Community for Google Sheets and install them manually via the instructions in the community topic or some are still available in the Tiller Community Solutions add-on.
Explore, play, build, & share
As you explore keep in mind that not all templates will remain useful to you. We recommend that you delete any unused tabs in your spreadsheet. You can right click a tab to delete it. This will help keep your spreadsheet performant.
The best part about a spreadsheet is that you can tinker with it and then share that work with others. If you're a tinkerer at heart and want to share your work in the Tiller Community reference the builder's guides below and check out the Spreadsheets Category in the Tiller Community.
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Tiller Tip 7: Gaining clarity and staying confident
Now that you’ve completed the setup of your Tiller Foundation Template here are the key takeaways for using Tiller to help you gain clarity and stay confident about your financial future.
Stay engaged
Staying engaged is the number one key to achieving your financial goals and dreams. Give it your attention, remember these takeaways, and control of your money is within reach.
Keep the data flowing
You may need to visit the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com to refresh financial institutions so we have the latest available data to pull into your spreadsheet. If you’re using a Sidebar filled sheet don’t forget to click the “Fill” button in the Tiller Money Feeds sidebar to fill that new data into your spreadsheet.
Stay on top of categorizing
Categorize new transactions at least once a week. Do it manually with ease or build your awesome rule set to have AutoCat help out. This is key to gaining clarity about where your money is going and empowers you with the information you need to achieve your financial goals and dreams.
Tune those budget numbers
At the end of the month review your Monthly Budget sheet to check in on which categories were under and over budget. Consider adjusting budget amounts on the Categories sheet accordingly for the new month. Review the cash flow to date amount near the top left of the Monthly Budget sheet to see how you did.
Maintain motivation
Whether you’re a budgeting pro or finally decided to face your money situation, it’s comforting to know you’re not alone. There are others out there in the same situation.
Feeling supported is a big motivator toward achieving your financial goals and dreams. Finding community when you feel lost, confused, triumphant, or just want to share something cool that you built makes all the difference.
The Tiller Community is a vibrant, supportive, and inclusive space to ask questions, share wins, and explore all the possibilities for using Tiller to gain control of your financial life.
The Tiller team is here for you too.
If you ever run into issues connecting your bank, understanding how to use the Foundation template, or have a basic Tiller question, you can reach us via the chat tool in the lower right corner of the Tiller Console at https://my.tiller.com
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