Not ready for QuickBooks® yet? Start here. One clean workbook that tracks your income and expenses, builds your monthly profit & loss automatically, and helps you reconcile against the bank — designed with an active bookkeeper. Free forever, no signup, no card.
A starter set of income and expense categories you can edit freely. Every dropdown in the workbook updates automatically.
Pairs with Modules 2 & 7One row per transaction, category dropdowns to keep you consistent, and running totals. Example rows included so you see how it works.
Pairs with Modules 8 & 9An automatic month-by-month profit & loss — income, expenses, and net profit — plus category breakdowns. You never type in it; it fills itself.
Pairs with Module 12A monthly worksheet that proves your records match the bank statement, with the adjusted-balance math done for you.
Pairs with Module 11The Working Edition (first button) is prebuilt and ready to run your real books today — every formula in place, example rows included. The Practice Edition is for learning: the logs are empty, part of the Dashboard is deliberately unbuilt, and a Practice Data tab holds 22 raw bank transactions waiting to be entered, categorized, and totaled — with an Answer Key to check yourself against when you're done. If you're following the course or the Excel Path, the Practice Edition is your lab.
Download the file, go to drive.google.com, drag the file in, then double-click it and choose Open with Google Sheets. Everything — formulas, dropdowns, and the dashboard — carries over.
This workbook was built to pair with our course. Each tab notes which module explains the concept behind it — the Chart of Accounts tab pairs with our module on account types, the Reconciliation tab pairs with our bank reconciliation module, and so on. Use the spreadsheet to do the bookkeeping while the course teaches you why it works — then, when you're ready for invoicing, bank feeds, and sales tax, you'll already understand what QuickBooks is doing under the hood.
And when this spreadsheet starts feeling tight — too many transactions, customers to invoice, sales tax to track — that's not a failure, it's a milestone. QuickBooks is the next step, and teaching it is exactly what we do.
This spreadsheet is free forever — no account needed. When you're ready to actually master the books, create a free account (no card required) and get Module 1, the free Learning Path, and sample practice questions. Upgrade only if and when you want the full system.