Knowing where your money goes starts with putting each transaction in a category: groceries, rent, transport, utilities, eating out, subscriptions, income. Doing it by hand row by row is tedious; a small rules table does most of it for you, and a pivot table or SUMIFS turns the result into totals per month.
1. Get the transactions into a sheet
Convert your statements to Excel with StatementEasy (combine several months if you need a full year). You get a sheet with Date, Description, Money out, Money in and Balance. Add a column Category.
2. Build a rules table
On a new sheet called Rules, list a keyword in column A and its category in column B:
| Keyword (A) | Category (B) |
|---|---|
| TESCO | Groceries |
| CARREFOUR | Groceries |
| UBER | Transport |
| NETFLIX | Subscriptions |
| SALARY | Income |
Use the words that actually appear in your descriptions — card payments usually show the shop name.
3. Look the category up
In the Category column of the transactions sheet (row 2, description in B):
=IFERROR(INDEX(Rules!$B:$B, MATCH(TRUE, ISNUMBER(SEARCH(Rules!$A$2:$A$200, B2)), 0)), "Other")
It finds the first keyword contained in the description. In older Excel versions, confirm it with Ctrl+Shift+Enter. Fill it down, then look at the “Other” rows and add keywords for the ones that repeat.
4. Total per category and per month
Add a Month column: =TEXT(A2,"yyyy-mm"). Then either:
- Pivot table — Insert → PivotTable, Category in Rows, Month in Columns, Money out in Values. The quickest overview.
- SUMIFS — on a summary sheet,
=SUMIFS(Transactions!C:C, Transactions!F:F, $A2, Transactions!G:G, B$1)with categories down column A and months across row 1. It updates when you change a category.
5. Let the converter do it
StatementEasy can add the Category column for you. Switch on Categories under “Adjust the table”: common spending is recognised automatically, and when you correct a category in the table it offers to make a rule (“every description containing NETFLIX is Subscriptions”). Rules are saved in your browser, or in your account if you are signed in, and apply to every future statement. The Excel download then includes a Categories sheet with SUMIFS formulas, so re-categorising in Excel updates the totals.
Tips
- Keep categories few — ten to fifteen. Too many makes the totals hard to read.
- Treat transfers between your own accounts as their own category, so they do not count as spending.
- Look at the biggest categories first; that is where savings are.