Guides on "free UPI spend trackers" usually list BHIM, GPay, PhonePe, and a spreadsheet. That works - until you pay from three apps and one card.
What each source is good for
- GPay / PhonePe insights - great if almost all spends sit in one app.
- Bank / UPI SMS - one stream for every app and card the bank alerts on.
- Your spreadsheet - the only place you fully control forever.
The practical winner for multi-app users
Treat bank SMS as the intake hose, then keep the permanent ledger in Google Sheets. That is how SMS expense tracking is supposed to work in India - without bank login or Account Aggregator consent for daily kharch.
Kharch Log parses those SMS drafts on Android and syncs to your Sheet. See SMS auto-capture.