How to Build a Daily Cash Flow Guide in Sheets & Excel

You can build a daily cash flow system in a quiet Sunday afternoon. The real magic happens when that system runs itself, every morning, without you touching a keyboard. Let’s walk through practical ways to do this in Google Sheets and Excel, then show how an AI agent like Simular can take over the busywork.

1. Start With a Simple Manual Template in Google Sheets

Google Sheets is perfect when you want a lightweight, sharable tracker.

Step by step:

1. Create a new Sheet and add tabs: one for Daily Cash, one for Categories.
2. In Daily Cash, set up columns: Date, Opening Balance, Cash In, Cash Out, Net Change, Closing Balance, Notes.
3. Under Cash In and Cash Out, break out key categories (Sales, Retainers, Ad Spend, Payroll, Software, Taxes).
4. In the first row, type your starting Opening Balance. Set formulas:
   • Net Change = sum of Cash In minus sum of Cash Out.
   • Closing Balance = Opening Balance + Net Change.
5. Drag these formulas down for 30–60 rows (one row per day).
6. Each morning, enter actual inflows and outflows for yesterday, then copy the Closing Balance into the next day’s Opening Balance.

Pros: super flexible, easy to share with your team, works anywhere. Cons: manual entry takes time and is prone to typos.

2. Build a Structured Template in Excel

Excel shines when you need heavier analysis.

Step by step:

1. Download a free cash flow template or create a new workbook.
2. Add the same basic layout as Sheets, but use tables (Insert > Table) so ranges grow automatically.
3. Add Data Validation drop‑downs for category columns so your labels stay consistent.
4. Use conditional formatting to flag low cash days (for example, Closing Balance below a threshold turns red).
5. Create a PivotTable on a second sheet to summarize weekly or monthly net cash by category.

Pros: richer analysis, powerful formatting, offline use. Cons: collaboration is clunkier than Sheets unless you use OneDrive/SharePoint, and updating from multiple sources is still manual.

3. Semi‑Automate Data Imports Manually

Before bringing in AI, you can reduce friction:

• From your bank: export daily CSV transactions, then use a consistent import area in Sheets or Excel and formulas (like SUMIFS) to roll them into your daily table.
• From accounting or payment tools: schedule weekly exports and paste them into a dedicated tab that feeds your cash flow via lookup formulas.

This removes some manual typing but still depends on you remembering to run the routine.

4. Let a Simular AI Agent Do the Clicking

This is where Simular changes the game. Instead of building fragile integrations, you let an AI agent operate your actual desktop, browser, Google Sheets, and Excel just like a human assistant.

Here is what a daily run can look like:

1. At 7:30 am, a Simular Pro agent wakes up on your Mac.
2. It opens your browser, logs into each bank and payment processor, and downloads the latest CSVs.
3. It opens your Google Sheets or Excel cash flow file.
4. It pastes or imports yesterday’s transactions into the right tabs, matching date, amount, and category.
5. It checks formulas, recalculates totals, and verifies that Closing Balance matches the bank balance within a tolerance.
6. It highlights unusual movements (for example, a big unexpected debit) and writes a short summary in a Notes cell or separate summary tab.
7. Optionally, it emails or Slacks you a screenshot and key numbers.

Because Simular agents can automate nearly anything a human can do on a computer, you do not need APIs or plugins for each bank or tool; the agent simply uses the UI.

5. Pros and Cons of AI‑Powered Automation

Pros:

• Massive time savings: no more 20–30 minute daily update ritual.
• Higher reliability: the agent follows the same steps every time, at scale, across multiple entities or clients.
• Better insight: with the busywork handled, you can ask the agent to add quick analyses, like week‑over‑week cash changes or top three cash drains.

Cons:

• Initial setup: you need to walk the agent through logins, file locations, and what each column means.
• Governance: for the first few days, you still spot‑check its work to build trust.

The payoff is that your daily cash flow template in Sheets or Excel becomes a living system, powered by a transparent AI agent that does the grunt work while you focus on pricing, pipeline, and growth decisions.

6. Putting It All Together

Start manual. Get comfortable with your structure and categories. Once the template is genuinely useful, record the routine you repeat every morning and hand that routine to Simular. You keep control of the model; the AI handles the mouse and keyboard.