The tool, in your browser
The earned-money tracker
One row per job you’ve got going. Put in the contract amount, how far along it actually is, what you’ve billed and what you’ve been paid. The page works out what the job has genuinely earned, whether you’re over or under billed, and what’s still owed. A job in the red is one you’re building with your own money.
Free, and it asks for nothing. No email, no account, no sign-up. What you type stays in this browser on this device.
Read this first
This sheet only knows about this browser. Nothing you type is sent to us and nothing syncs, so the phone and the shop computer each keep their own copy — and anyone who opens this page on that computer can read your job names and your contract amounts. Clearing your browsing data wipes it, and a new phone won’t bring it along. For the copy that has to last, put the-earned-money-tracker.xlsx on the computer at the shop.
The tracker fills in right here in your browser. If this line stays put, JavaScript is off — the spreadsheet below does the same job.
How it gets used
- One row per active job — from the day a crew first sets foot on it until the final check clears.
- % complete is the number that drives everything. Rough and honest beats precise and wishful: walk it, or ask the foreman. Half-done is half-earned whether or not you’ve invoiced — that’s the whole insight.
- Work the red rows, not the bottom line. The over/under total is a net: one job you’ve over-billed cancels one you haven’t, so a bottom line near zero can still have an under-billed job buried in it. The page counts them for you.
- Under-billed means send the progress bill this week, while the crew is still on the roof and one invoice fixes it. Being under-billed is what leaves you profitable on paper and out of cash in the bank.
Where these numbers go next
Still owed is what you carry into the money meeting
The still owed figure is the money you’ve invoiced and not collected. That is the number that belongs on the money-owed list — one row per unpaid invoice, aged from today. Type it across yourself. These tools don’t read each other on purpose: on paper you copy a number between two sheets and you can see what you copied, and nothing here quietly changes a figure on a page you aren’t looking at.
The other half of the pair is margin, not timing: the job-cost sheet tells you what a job is worth; this one tells you when the cash actually turns up.
Want it in a spreadsheet?
The same tracker as a spreadsheet
the-earned-money-tracker.xlsx is this tracker as a spreadsheet — same columns, same formulas, same TOTAL row — for the computer at the shop. Three differences in the page’s favour: there’s no nine-row ceiling on what gets counted; the example job is placeholder text here, so there’s nothing to delete before you start; and a box holding something that isn’t a number says so and is left out, where the file would quietly total around it. Two the other way: the file is a real file, so it survives a cleared browser and opens on any computer you send it to, and it colours the under-billed cells red on paper when you print it. The sheets ask for your email once; this page never does.
The play behind it — M6-10 Know What You've Earned Before the Bank Tells You — is why half-built is half-earned, and what to do about the gap, and the sheet notes spell out every column and formula.