As of 10/11/2024, the BTS budget template (v1.4) has 300+ rows for the budget. But, if you have a previous version of the budget template, and need to add additional rows, here is how you do it.
Steps:
This will not effect your categories rules on the right side.
Here is a video demonstration:
If you would like to unsubscribe from your BTS subscription, here's how:
Open the BTS window in one of your Sheets, and go to the Menu
Then go to the Billing Dashboard to cancel your subscription.
Once you have cancelled your Subscription in the Stripe window - your BTS transactions will continue to sync until the end of your billing period.
If you no longer have need for one of your Bank Institutions, you can remove it. Use this feature within the BTS window:
This feature is only available to Subscribers. You are not able to remove Institutions during the trial period.
Syncing happens a few different ways within BankToSheets.
The first sync happens when you connect your institution to the Sheet. BTS will try to search back as far as available (within Plaid). This will be 2 years, or 500 transactions. This can vary greatly though from bank to bank. Some banks will only pull in a couple months of transactions.
Once your institution is connected to the Sheet, then the Sheet will update twice a day. It will sync between 12-1am EST and 12-1pm EST. The best way to know when it syncs is to look at the Balances tab. It will show a timestamp of when the sync occurred. Since the sheet should already contain as far back as possible at this point, this daily sync only looks a few days back to make sure no transactions are missed, and it will only add the transactions that are currently not in the Sheet.
The last way to sync is with the Force Sync button in the menu. This will also only sync back a couple of weeks. The main reason for using this feature is that it will trigger the Auto Categorization. If you've already synced your transactions to the Budget Template, and then you create your budget categories, then you'll want the new categories applied to the transactions. In order to do this, you'll need to run the Force Sync.
By default, BTS will only create certain columns to import transaction data into. But if you would like to see more info about the transactions, additional columns can be added. Here is a list of additional columns you can create, and new data will be imported into these columns if it's available from Plaid.
The column name needs to match exactly (case sensitive)
Example: if you want to see the check number (if available), your new column would look like this.
By default, BankToSheets will only import "cleared" transactions into your Sheet. This can range from a delay of 1-5 days, depending on your bank's process for clearing the transaction. Cleared transactions are the only ones that should be categorized, and considered in your budgeting and tracking.
But, if you would like to also import "pending" transactions so that you can get a closer "real-time" glimpse of your accounts, here's how:
This setting is unique to each sheet.
If you have selected to Import Pending Transactions, then they will display this way:
At this point, you may have the question of: will BTS delete the pending transaction after the cleared one is imported?
No, not yet. Currently Plaid is not 100% successful in matching the Cleared Transaction to the Pending one. Sometimes there is no match, which will leave the Pending transaction in the Sheet, or a Pending transaction is incorrectly linked to a Cleared one. So for now, BTS will not attempt to delete the Pending row.
By default, BTS will import the Institution name based on what Plaid provides. Sometimes the name is very long, or you'd just like to change it. You can rename the Institution easily by using this feature:
If you need to change which accounts are syncing to your Sheet, watch this tutorial:
If you'd like to remove the entire Institution from the Sheet, then "Unlink from Sheet." This institution will still be part of your account, and can still be used on other Sheets.
Want to start getting a list of recent transactions, and your latest balances in your Inbox each morning?
It's simple, just head to the BTS screen Menu in one of your spreadsheets, and turn on the "Send Daily Update Email" setting. This option applies to each of your spreadsheets individually.
To start with the pre-built BTS Budget template, download it here: Download. You can make as many copies of this template as you would like.
Once you have saved a copy of the template to your Google Drive, go ahead and open it. The Transactions (BTS) tab will have pre-defined columns, and you will also see the Budget & Categories (BTS) tab. On the Budget tab, start defining your categories, and the allotted amount for each one. Watch the video for a demonstration:
Now that you have your Budget Categories defined, you can start categorizing your transactions:
When your transactions have a category applied, you can start to analyze your progress on the Budget tab:
On the Budget tab, you can setup Category Rules. Define the text to look for within the transaction description, and select your designated category to be applied automatically.
Once your rules are defined, they will be applied to your transactions when they sync again. Or, you can force a sync via the Menu>Force Sync All button on the BTS screen.
A couple final tips:
