I’m new to Tiller and want to populate all the transactions made since 1/1/21 from all my cc and bank accounts, but the automatic feature doesn’t go that far back, so I’ll have to pull it in manually. The tutorials mention how to get bank account data in, but wondering if it’s any different for credit cards? and the credit card transactions I’m working on formatting have the debit and credit in separate columns. I am so confused how to handle that. should the debit be positive and credit be negative and meshed into one column? or the other way around? How will the csv line items add-on recognize it’s a credit card and not a bank account? i have several credit cards and bank accounts I’ll need to fill in, so i don’t want to make a mistake, or else it’ll be a mess, thanks!
To be consistent with the Transactions sheet the credit card payments (inflows to the credit card account) should be positive amounts and the credit card purchases should be negative amounts (outflows from the credit card account) and they should all be in a single column.
If all the amounts in your CSV are an absolute values and denoted as credit or debit in a separate column or you have two separate columns one for debits and one for credits, you’ll want to mesh them into a single column with the appropriate polarity.
thanks! i see in one of the guides here that this formula would help with the credit/debit meshing? but i’m not understanding how to use it…any pointers? or another formula to flip polarity?
I sort it so all similar items are together. In the next column I put in a formula to multiple the number in the other column by -1. Then you can drag down to fill other rows since they are all together. Then you can copy/paste(value) from the formula column to the column containing the data. Make sense? Blake
can you explain what you mean by sort similar items together? in the past i’ve done =- then clicked the cell i wanted to flip the sign for (from pos to neg), then dragged down, but then i get a 0 value where it’s empty for the debit column (since the values for the empty cells are in a separate column under credit)…sooo, how do you mesh the 2 in that case when the empty cell now has a 0? thanks!
Maybe start in a brand new column. Copy into that column every number that needs to be positive. You might get all those rows together via a sort if that makes the process easier. Then next deal with those numbers that need to be negative. Make a formula in your new column and say - the cell you want to make negative. Then do that process for all the others you want to make negative. Then convert those formulas to numbers. To do that you select all those cells with the formula and copy it and then paste (using value) right on top of itself. Maybe don’t drag but do copy/paste. Then get the numbers from your new column back into the column they need to be in to move forward with the process. Does this make sense? Blake
Hello there!
I am brand new to all things spreadsheets, Google Sheets and Tiller but I need to understand this concept asap. Sadly, all of these explanations are going right over my head :/. Is there a you tube video showing the process for dealing with the two column debit credit absolute value mesh into one column of a =/- amount value??
Any and all help would be priceless for me at this moment! Thanks everyone in advance. 
LaTrina
I’m so confused regarding this process or formula 
… do you have a video or a formula that I can use to solve this problem on my initial import cleanup work so I do not ruin my spreadsheet from the get go. I am so excited about this group but have run into this confusion at the beginning and cannot understand how to get “unstuck”.
Thank you so much!
LaTrina
Welcome @gerstbergerconstruct 
I don’t have a YouTube video describing how this is done.
Is this export directly from your bank?
Can you share a screenshot here of what the amount columns look like? That would help me offer you some steps.
Thank you for responding to my inquiry so quickly! :))
It is a direct export from my bank, yes ma’am.
I can try to take one and send it to you You wouldn’t happen to be able to do a screen share (Google Meet, Zoom etc.) to expedite the explanation process, would you??
I know I am asking a lot but I totally believe your product is everything I need for our business, IF I can get ahead of the learning curve LOL.
Thanks so much!
LaTrina
Hi @gerstbergerconstruct - we don’t offer live 1:1 support but I agree that would expedite things
You can send me a direct message of the screenshot if you prefer not to post it publicly or just mask the sensitive details like the descriptions of the transactions/account info, etc in the screenshot.
Hope you can get the hang of it!
Oh man… that is a 30 minute support session I would gladly pay for! 
Here is a screenshot of the columns created in my export.
Thanks for taking the time to review it for me!!
@gerstbergerconstruct if you just add a formula in the “credit” column to make the debits negative you can use that column’s data for the Amount.
It would be something like this =-E3
You can easily fill that down to empty cells using the fill handle
Example where I am using the same type of formula but for A2 instead of E3 and what it will look like:
Then when you’ve got all the amounts corrected just copy the column’s data and then paste over it with a right click “Paste Special > Values only” so that you just have the values and not the formulas. This is important so that when you paste into your Tiller Transactions sheet you don’t also paste the formulas.
THIS IS SO HELPFUL, Heather!!!
And about 1.5hrs faster than what I attempted to do yesterday 
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Have a great day!!!
LaTrina
In your empty Column G, you can type in Cell G2:
=if(isblank(E2)=true,F2,-1*E2)
Then copy and paste this formula all the way down your spreadsheet to the last row of data. As a last step, highlight all of Column G and copy and paste as values.
What this will do is use the credit number if the debit column is blank (“if E2 is blank, use the value in F2”), and otherwise use the debit number but multiply it by negative 1. This way you will have one column with the correct amounts to copy and paste into your Transactions sheet.
You’ll notice different banks and credit cards will format the data in different ways!
Thanks! This is perfect for creating a Macro… so much time to be saved with this.
Also… just to clarify? The banks and credit card feeds are all a bit different in their formatting like you mentioned… is it best practice for the reporting for the credit card amount formats to be the same as the bank feed formatting?
Example… deposits in the bank feed are Positive and charges against account are negative; therefore should I use your formula to make the payments to the credit cards Positive as well and the charges negative. This goes against my Accounting (albeit fairly limited) knowledge as they are typically the opposite in debit and credit terms due to their being no negative numbers in accounting but since this a spreadsheet and the credit card payments are listed as transfers in the type column then they need to be the same correct?
I apologize if I did not explain this in a concise manner- it’s tricky to be succinct with a subject I am totally new and confused about 
.
Full disclosure I am attempting to learn and use this to manage a sole prop construction business so the waters get muddy for me pretty quickly. On a positive note… if I ever decide to use this template for a simple personal situation… it will be a breeze to setup.
Thank you for any attempts to understand and clarify this matter for me.
For credit cards, you’ll primarily see three different things/want to get the data formatted this way:
- Negative numbers: expense
- Positive numbers: expense refund (e.g. a return)
- Positive numbers: payment to the credit card from your bank (transfer type)
Is that helpful?
It might be a good idea to try setting it up for a simple personal set up first! Sometimes it’s much easier to get it going in a simple set up before tackling a more complex set of accounts, and you’ll probably find you love it for your personal data too so it won’t be a waste of time!
Yes this is helpful and what I was trying to express!
Many thanks!!
You’re welcome!
I’m not affiliated with Tiller, but I do offer 1:1 support using Tiller if I can be helpful to you in getting things set up. Feel free to reach out using the link in my profile.