Free petty cash log template for Google Sheets

The petty cash log template

The download is one sheet with the nine columns below, a worked September already filled in so you can see the shape, fourteen blank rows with the running balance pre-filled, and a month-end block underneath. Delete the example rows when you are ready to use it for real.

To use it in Google Sheets: download the .xlsx, then File → Import → Upload and pick the file. The running balance keeps working after the import. The CSV is there if you prefer to start from plain text or import it into something else.

The columns, and why each one is there

What a filled-in month looks like

Three of those eight rows have no receipt. That is normal, and it is the whole reason the Receipt? column exists.

How to use a petty cash log

Petty cash runs on a float. You decide a fixed starting amount — $200, £200, whatever suits how often the tin actually gets used — and that number never changes. Cash goes out against it and gets topped back up to it. At any moment, the cash in the tin plus the spending you have logged since the last top-up equals the float. That is the only rule the whole system rests on.

So: log every withdrawal on the day it happens, in the Amount out column. When the tin runs low, put enough cash back to return it to the float and log that in Amount in. A top-up is not an expense — the expense was already recorded when the cash left. Logging the replenishment as a second expense is the most common way a petty cash log goes wrong, and it double-counts every dollar that passes through the tin.

Keep the categories the same ones you use for card spending. A box of stamps bought with petty cash is postage in exactly the way a box of stamps bought on the company card is postage. The payment method changed; the expense did not.

The month-end routine

1. Count the tin. Count the cash that is physically there, before you look at the log. Looking first makes you find the number you expected.
2. Compare it to the running balance. The last figure in the Running balance column is what the tin should hold. Write the counted amount underneath it.
3. Record any difference as cash over or short. If the two do not match, put the difference on its own cash over / (short) line. Do not edit earlier rows to make it balance.
4. Replenish back to the float. Put in enough cash to return the tin to its starting float, and log that as Amount in. It is a transfer, not an expense.
5. File the slips you have. Clip the month's receipts together with the log. The rows marked N are the ones to ask about while people still remember.

The over/short line matters more than it looks. A tin that is 40 cents short once is a rounding slip; a tin that is short every month is telling you something, and you can only see the pattern if each month’s difference is written down instead of smoothed away.

When there is no receipt

Petty cash is the one place where receipts genuinely go missing. The amounts are small, the slips are paper, half of them go through a wash, and there is no card statement underneath to fall back on. A card purchase you forgot to keep the receipt for still leaves a line on the statement. Cash leaves nothing at all. Whatever you write down at the time is the record.

So when the receipt is gone, write the row anyway, and write it properly:

• The date the cash left the tin.
• The amount, exactly.
• What it was for, specifically enough that it still makes sense in March.
• Who took the cash, and who said it was fine.
• N in the Receipt? column, so the gap is visible rather than assumed.

ExpenseBot handles this same case the same way. In the dashboard, Add Expense → Add Manual Expense opens a window where you can say the spend out loud (“eighteen dollars, taxi, courier missed the pickup”) or type it, and a manual cash expense is tagged “No Receipt” automatically — you do not have to remember to flag it. You can also email receipts@expensebot.ai with a subject that starts cash:, for example cash: $18 taxi, from your login address or a verified forwarding address. If you ask the in-app assistant to add a cash expense, it shows you the entry and waits for your confirmation before writing anything.

ExpenseBot is an expense tracker that captures cash spends by voice or typed entry and tags receipt-less ones “No Receipt”, so the tin’s spending sits in the same Google Sheet as the card and bank spending instead of in a separate world. That is spend capture, and it is the honest limit of what it does here: it does not reconcile your float, enforce an approval chain, or audit the tin. The template above is the control. ExpenseBot is the capture, so the missing slip is recorded rather than lost.

For the wider job of getting paper and emailed receipts into one place, see the receipt organizer app.

Petty cash log vs expense tracker — which do you need?

These are not competing tools; they cover different ground, and most offices that hold cash end up with both.

Put plainly: a petty cash log tracks one tin, and an expense tracker tracks the business. If you do not hold cash, you do not need this page — the expense tracker template covers the broader job. If you are the person collecting receipts from a whole team as well as running the tin, the office manager expense tracker is the page for that workflow.

Petty cash and your books

Petty cash spending is ordinary business spending. A $9.60 book of stamps is postage whether it came from the tin, the company card or someone’s pocket, and it belongs in the same category as every other postage line. The log is a record of how the money moved, not a separate tax treatment, and nothing on it changes what an expense is or whether it is deductible.

Keep the slips you do have, filed with the month they belong to. How long you are expected to keep them differs by country, so check the requirement where you file rather than assuming a number. The rows you marked N are the ones worth chasing first, and the sooner the better — the person who took the cash remembers this week and will not remember in April.

Estimates — confirm with your tax professional. Last updated September 23, 2026.