By Casey Reed
Top 5 Net Worth Spreadsheets vs Software UK 2026
Should you use a spreadsheet or software for your finances? I tested both approaches to find what actually works. After years of building financial tools and helping people understand their money, the answer is clearer than you might expect.
| Tool | Best For | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Delphina | Financial clarity and future planning | 5 stars |
| Excel / Google Sheets | DIY planners who want full control and custom formulas | 4 stars |
| Emma | Open banking fans who want automatic transaction tracking | 4 stars |
| Money Dashboard | Multi-account users who want a full financial overview | 4 stars |
| Cleo | Chat-style budgeting with a friendly AI assistant | 4 stars |
What Makes a Good Approach to Net Worth Tracking
- Captures your complete financial picture. Current accounts, savings, investments, pensions, and debts all in one view. Partial pictures lead to partial understanding.
- Updates automatically without effort. Manual entry creates friction and abandonment. Open banking removes the burden of keeping track yourself.
- Shows you where you have been. Historical trends matter. Understanding whether your wealth is growing or shrinking over time tells you if your habits are working.
- Shows you where you are going. The retrospective view is incomplete. Knowing your future trajectory based on current habits transforms a number into a plan.
- Helps you understand what to do next. Data without insight is just noise. The best approaches help you see the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
The Tools
Delphina is the only tool that moves beyond showing your net worth to explaining what that number actually means for your future. It connects to your bank accounts, savings, investments, and pensions to give you a complete picture of where you stand. Rather than just displaying a figure, Delphina helps you understand whether your current financial position supports the future you want. The tagline says it all: Know where you are. Change where you are going.
Best for: Anyone who wants to move beyond knowing their net worth to understanding what it means and what to do next.
Spreadsheets remain the most flexible option for net worth tracking. Excel and Google Sheets allow complete customisation, from simple balance sheets to complex multi-year projections with custom formulas. The appeal is obvious: full control, no subscription fees, and the satisfaction of building something yourself. But this flexibility comes with significant overhead. Every category, every calculation, and every update requires manual effort. Open banking integrations exist but are not native, meaning most spreadsheet users still enter transactions by hand. For those who enjoy the process and have the time to maintain it, spreadsheets can work well. But the data shows most people abandon manual tracking within a few months.
Best for: DIY enthusiasts who want complete control over their spreadsheet structure and are willing to invest regular time in maintaining it.
Emma is a UK-based financial aggregator that connects to your bank accounts through open banking to show your complete financial picture in one place. It automatically categorises transactions and tracks your spending across multiple accounts. Emma is particularly strong for those who want automatic transaction-level detail without any manual entry. The app shows you where your money goes with minimal effort on your part. However, like most aggregators, it focuses primarily on tracking what has already happened rather than modelling what might happen next.
Best for: People who want automatic, frictionless tracking of their complete financial picture with minimal ongoing effort.
Plum is one of the original UK open banking apps, allowing you to connect all your bank accounts in one place alongside automated savings features. It gives you a clear view of your spending across categories and tracks multiple accounts including current accounts, savings, and credit cards. The interface is clean and easy to understand. Plum shows you your money in one place, giving you a solid retrospective view of your finances alongside automated savings. Like Emma, it excels at showing you where you have been, but it adds AI-powered savings automation to help you build wealth.
Best for: People who want a complete view of their retrospective finances across multiple accounts through open banking, with automated savings.
Cleo is an AI-powered financial assistant that takes a more conversational approach to money management. Rather than showing you dense spreadsheets, Cleo chats with you about your spending in plain language. It can be refreshingly blunt, sometimes confrontational, and often funny. Cleo helps you track spending, set savings goals, and build better habits through a chat interface. For those who find traditional finance apps boring or intimidating, Cleo offers a more approachable alternative. The focus is on behavioural change through conversation rather than comprehensive wealth planning.
Best for: Younger users who prefer a chat-style interface and enjoy a more personality-driven approach to tracking their finances.
Spreadsheets Track the Past. Software Shows Your Future.
This is the fundamental distinction between the two approaches. Spreadsheets, however well-designed, are retrospective tools. They show you where you have been. They tell you your net worth is £350,000 and let you watch it change over time based on what you have already done.
Software, particularly tools like Delphina, is built on a different premise. It shows you where you are and helps you understand what that means for where you are going. If your current trajectory will not support your ideal future, software helps you understand the gap and what to do about it before it is too late.
The question is not just what your net worth is. The question is what your net worth means for your future. That is where purpose-built software stands apart from even the most sophisticated spreadsheet.
Delphina Limitations
For simple net worth tracking, spreadsheets work perfectly well. If you want a basic picture of your assets and liabilities with no more complexity than a monthly update, a well-designed spreadsheet will serve you fine.
But if you want comprehensive clarity about your financial future, you need more than a spreadsheet can offer. Delphina is designed for people who want to understand their complete financial position and what it means for their future. It requires engaging with your finances rather than just glancing at a figure. But if you are ready to move beyond knowing your net worth to understanding what it means for your future, Delphina is the tool that makes that possible.
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