If your money lives in a spreadsheet, you’re exactly who this was built for.

Not because the sheet failed you. Because it taught you the right standard: understand every number, trust nothing you didn’t build. This page is the case for moving the ledger out of the sheet, and it includes what the sheet still does better.

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No bank linking. Your CSV imports. Export is a spreadsheet, anytime.

The most honest tool most people ever use

A spreadsheet is the only money tool where nothing is inferred. Every formula is yours, every cell is traceable, and nothing happens that you didn’t type. People who keep their money in a sheet understand their finances better than most people using polished apps ever will, because the sheet makes you do the understanding.

That fluency is the thing Marked Money wants to keep, not replace. The question is only whether the ledger itself, the record of what actually happened, belongs in a tool where any keystroke can quietly rewrite it.

Where the sheet rots

  • Nothing reconciles. The sheet says what you typed; the statement says what happened; nothing makes them agree, so drift accumulates silently.
  • History has no lock. One keystroke edits March in August, and there is no trace that it happened.
  • Formulas break quietly. Move a row, insert a column, and a total stops meaning what it meant. The sheet doesn’t know, so it can’t tell you.
  • Nothing balances by construction. An error has no structure to get caught by, so it survives.
  • History means tabs, and tabs multiply. Sharing means emailing copies, and copies fork.

What double-entry buys

Every entry balances.

Both sides of every transaction are recorded, so a mistake breaks something visible instead of hiding in a cell until tax time.

Every account reconciles, and a settled month stays settled.

Pick a statement, tick off what cleared, see exactly what’s different, then lock the month. Nothing can quietly change behind a number you already checked.

The books are shared, not copied.

Two people can work the same books instead of emailing versions. Your accountant can hold a seat too: view-only until you allow editing, with every change kept in History under their name.

What carries over

The CSV import takes what the sheet holds now. Opening balances start each account where it actually stands. Your own categories become accounts you can rename or merge afterwards. Nothing asks you to start from zero, and nothing connects to your bank: you bring the file, and you confirm what was found before anything posts.

Already using Tiller?

Then you have the best version of the feeds-into-your-own-sheet idea, and a real community around it. This section isn’t going to pretend otherwise.

Here is the fork. Tiller automates what arrives; nothing verifies what’s there. The feeds ride the same aggregator rails as every linked app, and downstream of the feed it is still a sheet: formulas break silently, nothing balances by construction, and no month can be locked. If daily feeds and formula freedom are what you want, stay on Tiller, and that is meant plainly. If you’ve learned that a sheet’s formulas are where trust goes to die, you’re who this page is for.

And the exit stays open in both directions: the whole book comes back out as a formatted workbook any day you ask.

What the sheet still does better

  • Modeling. A sheet can project, run what-ifs, and analyze anything you can write a formula for. These books won’t do that, on purpose: they are a record, not a sandbox.
  • Your own analysis. If a tab of scenarios is the part you love, keep it, and feed it from the export instead of from memory.
  • Zero learning curve. You already know your sheet. Double-entry asks you to learn a small amount of structure in exchange for the guarantees above.

And the exit door is a feature, stated plainly: export is a spreadsheet. You can always go back. You just won’t be reconciling by hand when you leave.

Move the ledger. Keep the fluency.

Import the CSV, set your opening balances, keep your own categories. The first statement you reconcile will tell you whether this is your kind of tool.

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The first 100 accounts get a founding-member price, locked.

If you want to see the thinking first: the Learn essays explain the accounting decisions underneath, including why a transfer between your own accounts is not spending.