When Something Goes Wrong

The app needs two things to work: an internet connection, and permission to write to the spreadsheet. When either is missing, here is what you will see and what to do about it.

The Connection Error screen

If the app cannot reach the spreadsheet when it opens, the form is replaced by a Connection Error screen with two buttons: Change Tab Name and Test Connection.

The commonest cause is spreadsheet permission. The app signs in to Google as its own dedicated Google account, and the spreadsheet must be shared with that account as an Editor. If someone changes the spreadsheet’s sharing — or replaces the spreadsheet — the app loses access. That account’s address is not printed in this guide; it is kept with the app’s private setup notes, and whoever set the app up has it.

What you do:

1. Check you are online — open any other website to confirm.
2. Press Test Connection. If the status turns green, you are done; a momentary problem fixed itself.
3. If it still fails, open the spreadsheet directly in Google Sheets and check its Share settings: the app’s dedicated account address must be listed with Editor access. Add it back if it is missing (the address is in the app’s private setup notes).
4. Press Test Connection again.
5. If it still fails, contact whoever maintains the app — the built-in settings may need updating (see below).

A save that does not stick

When a save works, you always get the green Expense saved successfully! message and the form clears. If you press Save Expense and that green message never appears — the button just stops showing Saving… and nothing else happens — the entry did not reach the spreadsheet. The app does not always show an error message for a failed save, so the green message is your proof of success.

What you do:

1. If no green message appeared, assume the entry was not saved.
2. Open the spreadsheet (the blue Sheet: link at the bottom of the app) and check the bottom rows to be sure.
3. If the row is not there, press Save Expense again — your typed values are still in the form after a failed save.
4. If it keeps failing, reload the page and let the connection test run again; if that shows a Connection Error, follow the steps above.

Red messages under individual boxes are different: those mean the app refused to try because something you typed is not acceptable (for example, an amount of zero). Fix the outlined field and save again — nothing was sent.

The Configure window

At the bottom of the main page there is a Configure button (the Change Tab Name button on the error screen opens the same window). It shows which spreadsheet the app is connected to, and lets you choose which tab new entries are saved to.

The tab is a drop-down list, not something you type. The list comes from the server, and it only ever offers tabs the app is actually allowed to write to — so you cannot pick one that quietly fails to save. The spreadsheet itself, and the app’s sign-in details, are set on the server and cannot be changed from this page. That is deliberate: anyone can open the app, and nobody visiting it should be able to redirect your entries somewhere else.

Changes made in this window last only until the page is next loaded. The app starts from its usual tab every time it opens, so a temporary change cannot linger and quietly send entries to the wrong place.

What you do (temporary change, this visit only):

1. Press Configure at the bottom of the page.
2. Pick a tab from the Save entries to this tab list.
3. Press Update Configuration.
4. The status line resets and the app re-checks the connection; wait for the green Connected before saving entries.
5. Remember: reloading the page puts the usual tab back.

Changing the spreadsheet or the tab permanently

This is the once-a-year job — pointing the app at a new year’s tab, or at a different spreadsheet altogether. It is done on the server, in Cloudflare, and it needs no code change and no republish: the app reads these settings fresh every time it runs.

The same steps are written inside the app itself, under Configure → Change the spreadsheet, or add a tab, permanently, so you do not have to find this page to do it.

What you do:

1. Open Cloudflare and sign in.
2. Go to Workers & Pages → lineentry.
3. Open the Settings tab.
4. Find Variables and Secrets.
5. Edit the setting you need:
   • SHEETS_SPREADSHEET_ID — which spreadsheet the app writes to. This is the long code in the middle of a Google Sheets web address, between /d/ and /edit.
   • SHEETS_ALLOWED_TABS — which tabs may be written to, separated by commas, for example Lines 2026,Lines 2027. Each name must match the tab in the spreadsheet exactly.
6. Save, then reload the app. The new tab appears in the Configure list.

If you point the app at a different spreadsheet, share that spreadsheet with the app’s own Google account as an Editor first — otherwise the app will open on the Connection Error screen. That account’s address is kept with the app’s private setup notes.

Two things worth knowing

• No login means the address is the only lock. Anyone who has the app’s web address can add rows to the spreadsheet. Do not post or forward the address.
• The app keeps nothing on your device. Entries go straight to the spreadsheet; there is no local copy, history, or draft to recover from the app itself.