Tallyfold · quick-start
How to tick, file, and reuse the monthly bill tracker
A one-pager to keep next to your printer. Print it once, slip it into the binder with the bill pages, refer back each month.
Tick each bill the day it clears
The paid column is the source of truth for the month: a tick says the money left your account and the receipt is filed. Leave the cell unmarked if the bill is in flight — a question mark is more honest than a tick.
- Use a pen for the paid tick — pencil smudges on ruled lines and erases back to ambiguous.
- Write the pay date in the short cell to the right of the tick if you want a receipt trail.
- Skip a row only if the bill is paused. An unfilled row is easier to track than a crossed-out one.
Total at the bottom of the page
The grey bar at the bottom is your one-number summary. Most months TOTAL DUE equals TOTAL PAID at month-end; the cash-flow job is to make that true without overdrawing the account.
- Fill TOTAL DUE once as the sum of the Amount column. Use a calculator app or a pencil.
- Fill TOTAL PAID at the end of the month: the sum of every row you ticked.
- The difference is what you still owe — the figure worth circling in red.
Cycle, photocopy, carry forward
The bill tracker earns its keep over a full year. After two cycles it takes about ninety seconds to fill in; after twelve months the binder is itself a quiet household archive.
- On the 1st of next month, open the same PDF, set a new month name, print fresh.
- Carry the previous TOTAL PAID into next month's running balance if you track one.
- Keep cancelled bills in a dated folder. Twelve months of pages is a useful tax record.