How to use Personal Budget template available in Numbers

Essentially the same process as using any of the other templates:

Click File to open the File menu.

Press Option and click New from Termplate to open the Templates screen.

Double click the Personal Budget item to open a new document using that template.

The document will open showing the Summary sheet:

The table on that page contains four columns:

Column A contains a list of categories. These can be edited, but for the first run, I would suggest leaving them as they are.

Column B contains the monthly amount you have budgeted for each category. Follow the instruction near the top of the page, and replace the amounts in these cells with your monthly budget amounts for each category.

Columns C and D contain formulas used to summarize your spending in the two charts at the top of the page.The values are calculated from your entries in the Transaction page.

All columns on this table are used for data entry. Columns A (date) , B (Description) and D (Amount) are entered from the keyboard.

Column C contains a pop-up menu in each cell. Each menu contains the list of all Categories listed on the Summary page. If you are using the categories as provided in the template (recommended), there is no need to reconstruct these menus.

To enter a value from the pop-up menu, click the (blank) cell to select it and display the V seen to its right.

Click the V to open the menu, then click the category you want in the list to insert that category into the cell and close the menu.

As you fill in the actual amounts spent, the (hidden) tables feeding data to the two charts will collect the data and send it to the charts to create the two graphs you see on the Summary page.

Regards,

Barry