How to Create a Debt Tracker in Google Sheets

Trying to get a clear picture of your debt can feel like piecing together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. You have a student loan statement here, a credit card bill there, and a car payment confirmation somewhere in your email. This article will show you how to build a clear, simple, and automated debt tracker right in Google Sheets. You'll learn how to set up the spreadsheet, use powerful formulas to connect your data, and visualize your payoff progress.

Why Use Google Sheets for Debt Tracking?

Before jumping into a generic template, building your own tracker gives you complete control. Spreadsheets like Google Sheets are perfect for this because they are free, accessible from any device, and infinitely customizable. You can tailor it to your exact needs, whether you're managing one credit card or a dozen different loans. Plus, the process of building it yourself helps you engage with and truly understand your financial situation.

Step 1: Setting Up Your Google Sheet

First things first, let's get our digital workspace ready. Open Google Sheets and create a new, blank spreadsheet. We will use two separate tabs (or "sheets") to keep things organized. This separation is key: one tab will be your high-level dashboard, and the other will be a simple log for all your payments.

Rename the default tabs at the bottom of the screen:

• Double-click on "Sheet1" and rename it to Debt Dashboard.
• Click the "+" icon to add a new sheet, then double-click it and rename it to Payment Log.

This structure prevents your dashboard from getting cluttered and makes updating your progress incredibly simple.

Step 2: Structuring Your "Debt Dashboard" Tab

The Debt Dashboard is your command center. It will provide a snapshot of all your debts, their current balances, and interest rates. It will automatically update as you log new payments.

In the first row of your Debt Dashboard sheet, create the following headers in columns A through H:

• A1: Loan Name
• B1: Lender
• C1: Debt Type (e.g., Credit Card, Student Loan)
• D1: Starting Balance
• E1: Interest Rate (APR)
• F1: Minimum Payment
• G1: Total Payments Made
• H1: Current Balance

Feel free to freeze the top row for easier scrolling by clicking View > Freeze > 1 row. This keeps your headers visible as you add more debts to the list.

Step 3: Building Your "Payment Log" Tab

Now, click over to your clean Payment Log tab. This is where you will record every single payment you make toward your debts. It doesn't need to be fancy, its only job is to provide the data that our dashboard formulas will use. Simplicity is your friend here.

Set up the following headers in the first row:

• A1: Date
• B1: Loan Name
• C1: Payment Amount
• D1: Notes (Optional)

This simple log is powerful because it’s so easy to maintain. After you make a payment, just pop in here and add a new row with the date, the name of the loan you paid, and the amount. That's it.

Step 4: Putting Your Debt Information In One Place

This is where you gather all your account statements. Flip back to your Debt Dashboard tab and start filling in the details for each of your debts, one row per loan. For now, only fill in columns A through F. We'll use formulas for "Total Payments Made" (Column G) and "Current Balance" (Column H) in the next step.

Here’s an example of what your data entry might look like:

• Loan Name: Chase Sapphire Card
• Lender: Chase Bank
• Debt Type: Credit Card
• Starting Balance: 2500
• Interest Rate (APR): 21.99%
• Minimum Payment: 50

Continue this for every debt you have. To format the monetary values correctly, select columns D, F, G, and H and click Format > Number > Currency. For the interest rate (column E), select the column and click Format > Number > Percent.

This manual data entry is a one-time setup. Once it's done, the rest of the process becomes mostly automated.

Step 5: The Fun Part - Adding Formulas

This is where the magic happens. We’ll add a few simple formulas that will make your debt tracker update itself automatically every time you log a new payment.

Calculating Total Payments Made with SUMIF

The SUMIF formula is the engine of our tracker. It will look through your entire Payment Log, find all payments associated with a specific loan, and add them all up for you. We'll put this formula in the "Total Payments Made" column (Column G) on your Debt Dashboard.

In cell G2, enter the following formula:

=SUMIF('Payment Log'!B:B, A2, 'Payment Log'!C:C)

Let's break down what this formula is doing:

• SUMIF(...): This tells Google Sheets to add up values only if they meet a certain condition.
• 'Payment Log'!B:B: This is the range to check. The formula will look at all of Column B (Loan Name) on our Payment Log tab.
• A2: This is the condition. It tells the formula to only pay attention to rows where the name in 'Payment Log' Column B matches the loan name in cell A2 of our current sheet (the Debt Dashboard).
• 'Payment Log'!C:C: This is the sum range. If a row matches the condition, the formula will take the value from Column C (Payment Amount) on that row and add it to the total.

Once you press Enter, drag the small blue square in the bottom-right corner of cell G2 down to apply this formula to all other rows in your dashboard. Now, any payments you log for "Chase Sapphire Card" will automatically total up in this cell.

Calculating the Current Balance

Now that we have the starting balance and the total payments made, calculating the current balance is just simple subtraction.

In cell H2 of your Debt Dashboard, enter this formula:

=D2-G2

This takes the value from the "Starting Balance" (D2) and subtracts the "Total Payments Made" (G2) that we just calculated. Just like before, drag the blue square down to apply this formula to all your loans. Your dashboard is now fully functional! Whenever you add an entry to the Payment Log, both "Total Payments Made" and "Current Balance" will update instantly.

Step 6: Visualizing Your Progress with Charts

Numbers are great, but a visual can be incredibly motivating. Let's create a simple pie chart to see how your different debts contribute to your total outstanding balance.

1. On your Debt Dashboard, click and drag to select the data in your "Loan Name" column (e.g., A2:A5).
2. Hold down the Command key (on Mac) or Control key (on Windows) and select the corresponding data in your "Current Balance" column (e.g., H2:H5).
3. Go to the menu and click Insert > Chart.
4. Google Sheets will probably suggest a Pie Chart by default. If not, you can select it from the "Chart type" dropdown in the Chart editor sidebar on the right.

You now have a clean, easy-to-understand chart showing your debt breakdown. You can drag it to the top or side of your dashboard to create a high-level overview. Watching the slices of this pie shrink as you make payments is a fantastic way to stay motivated.

Bonus Tips for an Even Better Tracker

If you want to take your Google Sheets debt tracker to the next level, here are a few extra tips:

• Use Data Validation: To avoid typos in your Payment Log (which would break the SUMIF formula), create a dropdown menu for the "Loan Name" column. Click on cell B2 in Payment Log, go to Data > Data validation. For the "Criteria," choose "List from a range," and then select the range of your loan names from your Debt Dashboard tab (e.g., 'Debt Dashboard'!A2:A10). Now you'll have a neat dropdown menu for selecting loans.
• Apply Conditional Formatting: Make your dashboard more scannable by highlighting your highest-interest debts. Select your "Interest Rate" column, then go to Format > Conditional formatting. You can set a rule to make any cells with a value "greater than 15%" to have a red background, for example.
• Choose a Payoff Strategy: Now that your data is organized, you can easily implement a payoff strategy. For the Debt Avalanche method, sort your dashboard by interest rate (highest to lowest) and focus on making extra payments to the loan at the top. For the Debt Snowball method, sort by current balance (lowest to highest) and attack the smallest debt first to build momentum.

Final Thoughts

You've successfully built a dynamic, custom debt tracker in Google Sheets. By separating your dashboard from your payment log and using a simple SUMIF formula, you've created a powerful tool to take control of your finances, track your progress, and stay motivated on your debt-free journey.

Building this tracker shows how powerful organizing data can be, though manually setting up connections and formulas for different data sources can still be time-consuming. This is where we designed Graphed to help. Instead of wrestling with CSVs or setting up manual formulas to connect business data, we help you connect directly to apps like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce in a few clicks. You can then ask questions in natural language - like "show me my top ad campaigns by revenue" - and get a real-time dashboard built for you in seconds, saving you from all the manual setup.