Checkbook Register

A checkbook register is the original budgeting tool: a list of everything that goes into and out of an account, with the balance after each line. Banks show you the balance at the moment, but only your own record tells you what will be left after the payments you have already made. Keeping one is a good way to catch mistakes, avoid overdrafts and see where the money went. The page keeps the running total for you.

Writing the lines

Type or paste one transaction per line in the form date, description, amount. For example “2026-01-03, Rent, -18000” is a withdrawal and “2026-01-01, Salary, 52000” is a deposit. The description may contain commas, because the last comma separates the amount. If you leave out the date, write “Rent, -18000”. Any date format works, since dates are only labels. The starting balance goes in its own field.

Deposits, withdrawals and signs

Amounts with a plus or minus sign are taken as written: positive is money in, negative money out. Amounts without a sign follow the select box, which is set to deposit by default. If you paste a list where withdrawals are written as plain numbers, change it to Withdrawal and everything unsigned is subtracted. Currency symbols and thousands separators are ignored.

A worked example

The sample starts with a balance of 5,000 and six lines: a salary of 52,000, rent of 18,000, groceries of 3,200, an electricity bill of 1,450, a freelance payment of 12,000 and a restaurant bill of 2,150. Total deposits are 64,000 and total withdrawals are 24,800 (18,000 + 3,200 + 1,450 + 2,150), so the ending balance is 44,200. The lowest balance is the starting 5,000, which means the account never dips below where it began. The second sample shows an account that starts at 800, receives 1,500 and ends at 2,075.

The lowest balance

The lowest balance, and the transaction that caused it, is the number to watch. It tells you how close you came to an overdraft or a bounced payment, even if the ending balance looks comfortable. If the balance goes below zero, the page shows a warning that names the line. Reordering your own payments, for example moving a large bill after payday, is the easy fix, and you can try it by changing the order of lines.

Reconciling with the bank

Once a month, compare the register with the bank statement. Tick off matching items, then look at what remains. Items in your register but not on the statement are outstanding; items on the statement but not in your register are fees, interest or payments you forgot. Add the missing ones, and the register balance should equal the bank balance minus outstanding payments plus outstanding deposits.

Limits

The page keeps your lines in the browser on your device, so clearing site data removes them; download the CSV to keep a copy. It has no categories, no search and no link to the bank. Nothing is uploaded.

Related tools

• Expense Splitter works out who owes whom before you record the settlement here.
• Net Worth Calculator adds your account balance to the rest of what you own.
• 50/30/20 Budget Calculator compares your spending with a target split.
• Subscription Cost Calculator adds up the recurring items in a register.