Spreadsheets

If you are planning your finances in Google Sheets or Excel, you are in good company. Spreadsheets are where most people start: they are free, flexible, and familiar. But as your financial picture grows more complex, spreadsheets start to show their limits.

Doughsense is a purpose-built financial planning tool that handles the scenarios, projections, and analysis that spreadsheets struggle with, without the formula maintenance.

At a Glance

Which Is Right for You?

Choose spreadsheets if you prefer full control over your financial model and are comfortable maintaining formulas and assumptions over time. Spreadsheets offer unlimited customisation: you can model anything if you are willing to write the formulas and keep them updated. They are also free, which matters. If your financial picture is simple, a well-built spreadsheet may be all you need.

Choose Doughsense if you want the answers your spreadsheet gives you, without the hours of maintenance. You will still see your projected net worth, scenario outcomes, and milestone dates, but the models are validated, the formulas never break, and everything updates automatically. Monte Carlo simulations stress-test your plan against 97 years of market data; building that in a spreadsheet is a serious engineering project.

12 financial health metrics -- including net worth, savings rate, debt-to-income, cash runway, and FI number -- explain your position in plain English, so you understand what your numbers mean without building your own analysis. AI-assisted onboarding sets you up in minutes, custom tax schedules cover a wide range of tax systems, and multi-currency support means no more manual exchange rate lookups. If you want a full-featured financial dashboard with bank feeds, see our Monarch comparison.

See It in Action

Doughsense AI-assisted onboarding setting up a financial plan in minutes

Pricing

Spreadsheets are free. Doughsense costs £10 per month or £80 per year with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required. The trade-off is time: maintaining a financial planning spreadsheet typically takes hours per month. Doughsense saves that time and adds capabilities like Monte Carlo simulations and financial health metrics that most spreadsheets simply cannot replicate without significant effort.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Doughsense do everything my spreadsheet does?

It depends on your spreadsheet. If you use it to track your net worth, project future balances, and model scenarios, Doughsense covers all of that with less manual effort. If your spreadsheet includes highly customised calculations specific to your situation, like tax optimisation logic or unusual income structures, you may need to check whether Doughsense's built-in models handle your case. Built in the UK to work anywhere, Doughsense supports custom tax schedules and multi-currency, so it handles international finances that spreadsheets make painful. Most users find that Doughsense covers 90%+ of what their spreadsheet did, with Monte Carlo simulations and financial health metrics adding capabilities their spreadsheet never had.

Can I import my spreadsheet data into Doughsense?

Doughsense does not currently offer a direct spreadsheet import feature. However, AI-assisted onboarding can set up your plan quickly by guiding you through your accounts, income, and expenses. Most users are set up within 10 to 15 minutes, which is significantly less time than maintaining a spreadsheet each month.

Is a spreadsheet more flexible than Doughsense?

A spreadsheet is as flexible as you need it to be. You can model anything if you are willing to build and maintain the formulas. In practice, financial planning spreadsheets tend to grow complex over time: formulas compound, references break, and the maintenance effort grows with your financial picture. Doughsense trades some customisation for reliability, built-in financial intelligence, and zero maintenance overhead.

How long does Doughsense take to set up?

Most users are set up within 10 to 15 minutes using AI-assisted onboarding. Compare that to the hours or days it typically takes to build a financial planning spreadsheet from scratch, plus the ongoing maintenance every month. Doughsense gets you to the answers faster and keeps them up to date automatically.

Can I export my data from Doughsense?

Yes. You can export all your data at any time through a self-serve download. This includes your accounts, balances, income, expenses, and settings. Projections are calculated live from your data rather than stored, so they are not part of the export, but the underlying data that drives them is always yours. If you ever want to go back to a spreadsheet, your data comes with you.