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Spreadsheet alternatives

When the spreadsheet stops working — switch to a tracker you can text

Almost everyone who tracks expenses starts in Excel or Google Sheets. Almost everyone abandons it within three months. Here's why, and what to do about it.

Spreadsheets are the universal first answer to How should I track expenses?. They're free, infinitely flexible, and require no new app. The hidden cost shows up later: the friction of opening a sheet on your phone every time you spend ₹80.

Most people fall off the wagon between week 4 and week 12. They stop logging in real time, then try to reconstruct from memory at month-end, then give up. The data format wasn't the problem — the friction of getting data in was.

Why spreadsheets break for daily logging

The act of opening Excel / Sheets, finding today's row, typing into four columns, and saving — even on mobile — costs about 30-45 seconds and three taps. Multiply by 5-10 expenses per day and you've created a chore your future self will skip.

Worse, the data validates nothing. You misspell Swiggy as swiggy and now month-end totals are split across two categories. You forget the date and back-fill at midnight. You delete the wrong row by accident on a small phone screen.

What a Telegram bot does instead

Hisaab takes whatever you'd write in the cells and lets you say it as one line: 2k rent, Swiggy 350, 180 to office. Behind the scenes the bot parses out amount, category, and merchant; validates the structure; and writes one row to a Postgres ledger that's yours alone.

The data is queryable. Ask /ask top categories last 30 days and the bot writes a SQL query against your private ledger and answers in plain English.

But I really like my spreadsheet

Then keep it. Hisaab has a /export command that returns a CSV of everything you've logged. Drop it into your favourite sheet at month-end and run whatever pivot tables you want. The bot doesn't lock you in.

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