Accessible, no bells & whistles spreadsheet program for financial info

October 21, 2016 11:51 AM

I used to be a maven at Lotus 123 -- that is not compatible anymore; and, I've forgotten what I was great at. Never really used Excel -- for real medical reasons not up to learning it now. For financial planning and estate planning I need to produce budget, asset and assorted other spreadsheets detailing my personal info.

Is there a really basic [horizontal/vertical columns that will (+,*,-,/)] with no extraneous bells and whistles that I can quickly learn for purposes of providing information to other parties? I have purchased YNAB and that's not it. I just need something straightforward that will not fight me as I try to pull this all together quickly. Many thanks!

posted by alwayson_slightlyoff to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

Google Sheets?
posted by GuyZero at 11:56 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, Google apps is what you want. It has a lot of bells and whistles but you don't need to learn or use any of them.

You can easily share the docs with anyone you want.
posted by bondcliff at 12:00 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

yes, google sheets is pretty straight forward and free.

if you want something offline and free, libre office has Calc.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:01 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I use both Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc, both linked above. They both work great. Calc has more bells and whistles, but Sheets has all the core functions I'll ever need, plus easy sharing (maybe not your need), phone apps (Android, at least-- haven't tried it on IOS). Google sheets does have some kind of offline ability, but I haven't really explored it. An offline requirement doesn't necessarily rule out Sheets, though.

You'll want to combine either one with a backup system (which may be more manual in the case of Google Docs) so that you can capture historical versions of the document; in case you screw up a formula and don't notice for 2 months, you'll want to be able to find a version from 3ish months ago to restore things.

To explain why I use both; I use sheets for casual calculations, charting for documentation at work, plus anything I want to share around the office. I use Calc for existing Excel docs (though Sheets handles them, just not as faithfully), and anything that has large data sets, especially if there're graphs involved.
posted by Sunburnt at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2016

LibreOffice Calc is probably what you want. It's a spreadsheet, not too different from what you're used to with Lotus 1-2-3; it's free; and it's not in the cloud. Even if you're using it for just one thing now, the tiny bit of self-reminding-learning you'll end up doing will be enough that you'll naturally default to using it for more later, and for financial stuff, storing locally and securely makes more sense.

If you use the Google Docs spreadsheet, you'll also have to learn about Google Docs: how to set up your account; your account password; how to share documents; how to make them reasonably secure; etc.
posted by amtho at 12:43 PM on October 21, 2016

Wait - do you need something that already has things like budget categories and tax info built in? Do you _really_ want a spreadsheet, or are you looking for basic financial software?

If the latter, maybe MoneyDance would suit. There will be some learning involved (anything that takes the complex parts of your life and re-shapes it is inherently complex), but it's really basic and inexpensive.

If you're really not up to it, could you just hire an accountant/personal financial advisor to help you with this?
posted by amtho at 12:51 PM on October 21, 2016

Google Docs and LibreOffice will certainly do what you need, but since you mentioned your proficiency in Lotus 1-2-3 ...

I am using Lotus 1-2-3 on a modern computer. Used it last night, in fact.

I have had the same copy of the program since 1987 when I got my first PC, and since then it has run on:
286 PC with DOS (1987)
486 PC with OS/2 (1993)
x86 PC with Windows 95 (1998)
x86 PC with Ubuntu 4.10 (2004)
(insert new Ubuntu Linux every two years)
x86 PC with Ubuntu 14.04 (2014)

Since 2004, I've been running it inside the DOSbox emulator. It took about an hour of effort in 2004 to get it to work the first time, but since then it has Just Worked with every upgrade.

/FR...
/WIRne
/C...
/WGRA
/FSeR

:)
posted by intermod at 8:40 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wow that was fast and great! Thanks to all of you!! Best answers all around. :)

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the google sheets link and found that I have an existing Google Doc account, set up a couple of years ago. Memory issues anyone? So I messed around in there, and that might do it except for one of the concerns mentioned above re security. Because, yes, this is intensely personal stuff. Also, in terms of a backup system for historical purposes, screenshots might work if that's a possibility?

I'm having difficulty downloading Calc, but I'll continue to work on that because I'd like to see it. I'm assuming I could find a way to take screenshots of anything I generate in order to share it?

I scoped out MoneyDance but, like YNAB, for this purpose it's more than I need. But thanks.

Re continuing in Lotus 1-2-3: my version is original and despite being told by the manufacturer that it wouldn't work and is no longer supported, I've also just been carrying it along from computer to computer -- I'm now on Windows 7. But I need to be able to send the generated material as an email attachment and Lotus doesn't play well with Excel, which is what most everyone else in the world (except you and me, intermod) are using.

And, finally, it is the accountant/personal financial advisor who is asking me to pull all this info together so that she can form a plan for me. She thinks I'm brilliant and doesn't quite get the angst of running up against my current (permanent?) cognitive and physical challenges.

And I'm looking for an easier work-around because I'm not ready to surrender my autonomy. Thanks again for your quick responses and help. :)
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 9:39 PM on October 21, 2016

For what it's worth you can just do * and + in Excel. Just like any software (including Calc or Google Sheets) just because it provides a lot of capability doesn't mean any of that capability is mandatory or makes it hard to do simple stuff.

Simplest thing might could be a Word doc also? If you're just talking "Here is the $ coming in ($x/month) from source 1, source 2, source 3 and here is the $ going out ($y/month) for expense 1 ($a/month), expense 2 ($b/month), expense 3 ($c/month)
posted by bleep at 1:30 AM on October 22, 2016

In terms of preserving history from Sheets, you can use the File -> Download As menu to extract file copies of your data as a spreadsheet form for local review, and which captures things like the formulas (.xlsx, .ods, either of which work in Calc), or a way that captures the values without all the mathematical architecture that supports it (PDF, which will be like a picture of data or CSV which will let you more easily import your numbers into another application including Calc).

The catch is that you'll have to do it manually-- unless you let google docs do its offline thing to your computer, which is in turn doing automatic file backup. The manual effort is the main drawback there-- it'll increase a lot as you increase your usage a lot.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:32 AM on October 23, 2016

Calc lets you export to PDF (Acrobat) format. You could also print to a file, expor to CSV, or just save as Excel and send the Excel file.
posted by amtho at 8:26 PM on October 24, 2016