I am trying to use credit cards as much as possible exactly for the purpose of simplifying calculations of my expenses.
I count my expences in the date/month I actually pay them. I don’t go into detailed analysis of my expenses, this is another story. I only calculate total amount.
My list of expenses per month is hardly 10 lines. Orders to pay almost all expenses (credit card and other bills, like utility, health insurance etc) are created automatically by standing orders in E-bill. Then there are few recurring orders, few if any manually created orders if I get a bill on a paper. Cash withdrawals (doesn’t happen very often these days) I immediately book as expenses on the day I did a withdrawal.
I put monthly spendings in another spread sheet and calculate total amount spend in a year and an average spending per month.
All this I do more for comfort and to have a feeling of control, because my wife doesn’t calculate her spending and only checks the balance of her accounts from time to time.