Microsoft is attempting to make managing personal finance easier for Excel users by launching a dynamic, smart template and add-in called Money in Excel.
The idea behind Money in Excel, as Microsoft explains, is to "simplify the task of managing your finances." Allowing Excel to do this, however, requires a huge amount of trust on the part of the user as Excel offers to securely connect to your "bank, credit card, investment, and loan accounts" automatically to pull down all the transactions and account information.
The add-in is available to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers in the US who simply need to download the Money in Excel template, open it in Excel, and follow the instructions that appear. The connection to your financial accounts is handled via a third-party plugin provided by Plaid, a company focused on connecting bank accounts to software/apps. By using Plaid, Microsoft automatically gains support for most major US financial institutions.
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Once imported, Excel can keep track of your spending habits, offers instant breakdowns of where your money is being spent across "groceries, household items, rent, and more," as well as alerting you when "subscription fees, changes in bank and overdraft charges" increase or a big purchase is made. Allowing Excel to access your most recent financial data is as simple as clicking the Update button once the initial link to your accounts has been established.
As you'd expect from Excel, a number of charts and tables are available to summarize your spending, but users can create their own as well as setup unique spending categories or copy transaction information into new spreadsheets. It sounds like a nice extra feature for existing Excel users, as long as they decide to trust Microsoft and Plaid with their financial account login credentials.
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