How to organize a wedding gift list in Excel
The trick is one row per gift: who, when, which event, received or given, how much. With that shape, per-person totals and balances are one formula away. Enter gifts on your phone, keep Excel for review and archiving.
Recommended columns
Keep everything in one sheet and filter, rather than one sheet per event.
- Date
- Direction — Received / Given
- Name — add a hint for people with the same name
- Relation — friend, work, family, relative, neighbor
- Event — Our wedding, Sam's baby's first birthday…
- Amount — numbers only; leave empty for flowers or gifts
- Note — flowers, gift, bank transfer…
Totals and balance per person
With Name in C, Direction in B and Amount in F: =SUMIFS(F:F,C:C,"Sam",B:B,"Received") gives what Sam gave you; swap in "Given" for what you gave. A positive difference means it's your turn.
A pivot table with Name in rows, Direction in columns and Sum of Amount as values shows everyone at once.
Where spreadsheets fall short
Filling cells on a phone at a wedding reception is painful, and a file that lives on one laptop disappears with it.
Enter on your phone, export to Excel
In Giftbook, create an event, add guests with "Add & next", then use Settings → Export CSV. You get date, direction, name, relation and amount in columns, ready for the formulas above in Excel or Google Sheets.
Log it on your phone, open it in Excel
Get Giftbook on Google Play