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Is an expense summary tool worth it if I can already build an Excel pivot table?

If you are fluent with pivot tables, you lose nothing by keeping them for deeper analysis. The tool earns its place in the quick monthly check: it keeps every currency apart automatically, lists each row it could not read by number instead of skipping it, and gives you a CSV or PDF summary in one step. For custom groupings, filtering and year-on-year comparison, a pivot table is stronger.

Published · 3 min read

Where a pivot table goes wrong silently

A pivot table does exactly what you ask, and that is the problem. Drag Amount into Values and Category into Rows, and it will add riyals and dirhams into one cell without a word. We entered three expenses in the Expense summary generator tool: Shipping 120.50 SAR on 2026-01-05, Packaging 80 SAR on 2026-01-18, and Shipping 45.25 AED on 2026-02-02.

  • The tool: Shipping on two lines, 120.50 SAR and 45.25 AED, and totals per currency of 200.50 SAR and 45.25 AED.
  • A pivot on Amount alone: Shipping 165.75, a figure that is neither riyals nor dirhams.

To be fair, you can add Currency to the pivot's rows and it will split them. But you have to remember to do it every time, and a file without a currency column slips through unnoticed. The tool gives you no chance to forget: a row without a currency is refused.

Rows that cannot be read

A date stored as text such as 05/01/2026, or an amount with 'SAR' typed into the cell, may reach the pivot as text and not be summed, or land in the wrong month, and you only find out by checking rows one by one. The tool lists every refused row with its number and reason, such as 'the date is not in YYYY-MM-DD format' or 'the amount is not a number', and gives the count in the import message.

Where a pivot table clearly wins

  • Grouping on several dimensions at once: branch, category and month together. The tool groups by month and by one category field only.
  • Filtering and slicing: just Q2, or one supplier, in a click.
  • Charts and year-on-year comparisons.
  • Long-lived files: a workbook you add to monthly that saves itself. The tool keeps nothing after you close the page.
  • Size: the tool is tested up to 2,000 rows per file.

A practical way to use both

  1. Keep your expense log in Excel as you do now.
  2. At month end, save that month's rows as CSV UTF-8 and import them into the tool.
  3. Work through the refused-rows list and fix them in Excel itself, which cleans your master file too.
  4. Download a PDF summary for your records or your accountant, and go back to the pivot table for deeper questions.

If you want to see your file's data the way any program reads it, without Excel's formatting, open it in the CSV and JSON converter.

Common questions

Does the tool ever give a different answer from a correct pivot table?

If the pivot splits currencies and every row is readable, the figures match. The difference is in what happens when that is not the case.

Can I import an xlsx file directly?

No, the tool imports UTF-8 CSV only. Save from Excel in that format first.