How to Track Registrations Using Google Sheets

With the rise of subscription-based software and business models, it’s important to have a system in place to manage and track the services you pay for. Luckily, Google Sheets is the only tool you need to record and manage these subscriptions.

Why use Google Sheets to track registrations?

There are a number of ways to track your monthly subscriptions, including mobile app stores (Google Play or the App Store) and paid subscription tracking apps. However, app stores can only track payments made within the platform, and paid tracking apps are often just another subscription on your monthly bill.

Google Sheets, on the other hand, is completely free, lightweight, extensible, and cross-platform. It’s also easy to use and supports formulas, filters, and conditional formatting to aggregate expenses, highlight upcoming renewals, and sort subscriptions by category. It supports collaboration, which can be useful for couples and families, and spreadsheets can be easily shared or exported in a variety of formats.

Tip : In addition to tracking subscriptions, Google Sheets can also record monthly expenses . You can add your subscription costs to your monthly expenses.

How to Set Up a Registration Tracker in Google Sheets

Creating a subscription tracker isn't as easy as installing an app and importing your existing subscriptions. This can take a while, especially if you're not using a template.

For this reason, the article created a subscription tracking spreadsheet with column headers for subscription name, subscription category, billing frequency and amount charged, subscription date, monthly cost, annual cost, lifetime cost, and action to take (e.g., cancel or renew).

The Category and Frequency columns have drop-down fields for subscription information. Formulas based on frequency, amount, and billing start date will automatically calculate monthly, annual, and lifetime costs of the subscription.

The formula for calculating monthly costs is as follows:

=IFS(C2="Annually",F2/12,C2 = "Weekly", F2*4, C2 = "Monthly", F2)

Monthly costs are calculated based on the specified subscription frequency. The amount paid is divided by 12, multiplied by 4, or entered as a whole amount in the cell.

For the annual cost of a subscription, multiply the monthly cost by 12. To calculate the lifetime cost, use the formula to find the number of weeks, months, or years since your first payment and multiply by the amount paid:

=IFS(C2 = "Weekly", F2 * INT((TODAY()-D2)/7), C2 = "Monthly", (DATEDIF(D2,TODAY(), "m") * F2), C2 = "Annually", (H2 * DATEDIF(D2, TODAY(),"y")))

The last column, Action , is where you can specify whether to renew, cancel, or even upgrade your subscription.

Get the most out of your subscription tracker

If you only have a few subscriptions to track and all you need is a place to organize them and see them all at once, the above template will work just fine. But to get the most out of your subscription tracker, you’ll need Google Sheets’ advanced features like conditional formatting and PivotTables.

Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting can be used to highlight subscriptions that are about to expire. To track subscriptions that are about to expire, add two additional columns to your spreadsheet: Next Due Date and Days to Action . Days to Action is a calculated column that automatically subtracts the current date from the renewal date using the formula below:

=IF(E2="","", E2-TODAY())

Once you set up those columns, you can apply conditional formatting to highlight subscriptions that are due in less than a month.

To apply conditional formatting to your spreadsheet, navigate to Format > Conditional Formatting . Enter the range of cells to format in the Apply to range text box . Under Format rules , click the first drop-down box ( Format cells if… ) and select Custom formula is .

Next, enter the following formula into the value or formula field:

=AND(ISNUMBER($K2), $K2 <=>

The above formula checks if the Days to Action column contains a number and if that number is less than or equal to 28. You can create another formatting rule to check if the number of days to perform a specific action is less than or equal to one week.

Note : Use a different fill color for the headers of columns containing formulas. This means they cannot be edited manually.

You’ve got a quick and easy way to manage your service subscriptions in Google Sheets. For a challenge, try using Apps Script to set up automated email reminders. You can have Gemini generate a code, add it to your spreadsheet, and configure the trigger to run when it’s due for renewal within a certain number of days. Also, consider canceling subscriptions that no longer provide the same value as before.