Created a Sheets Version of my Excel File - Comments and Questions

Google Sheets
1

Hello Sheets users!

I had never used sheets before but decided I wanted a backup version of my excel sheet. Overall, it was not too difficult. It would have been nice if the sheets were identical in both but for some reason, the order of columns was not the same but it was not a huge issue.
I have a fairly large number of customizations such as SubCategory, Notes, and Tags and some pivot tables and sheets that feed off of them.

First a couple of basic questions:

  1. Unlike Excel, Sheets seems to pull in new transactions automatically rather than via the Fill Button. Is there a way to inhibit this?

  2. I added Month and Year columns in Transactions as =Year(date), =Month(date). Is there a way for these to be automatically added in new transactions?

  3. I used dependent drop-downs for my SubCategory field so that it so options based on the category. In Excel it was very easy to implement and works very smoothly. For sheets, I had to write a script but it is extremely slow and clumsy. I did a lot of online research and could not find a simple, efficient way to do this.

  4. Is it true that scripts and extensions only run on a PC and not via a browser on an iPad Pro?

Overall, I see that both Excel and Sheets have pros and cons but are both powerful tools. Tiller having originated in sheets clearly favors sheets in terms of features and new releases but the excel implementation has become quite good.

One thing I had not realized but discovered when I created my new sheet is that Tiller keeps a database of all transactions from when I first created my original Excel sheet. This is really cool but would be even nicer if it saved all my manual data too such as all of my transactions from before I started using Tiller. Also, it would be nice if it saved my custom columns and categorizations but I guess would be a big project.

I will be back with more comments and questions as I spend more time comparing and contrasting the 2 versions.

2

Yes. In the ‘Tiller Money Feeds’ extension, choose Settings.
Then, you can un-check this toggle.

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Yes. In the column header, you can make an arrayformula like this:

={"Calculated Month"; ARRAYFORMULA(MONTH(B2:B))}

Bonus:
If you add “Month” as a column header, and do nothing else, newly imported transactions will give you a value of the first of the month for that transaction’s date.

Google sheets only runs in a browser, so as long as your browser on your iPad is able to install extensions, those should work. And scripts should always work.

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3

Thanks a lot for your help. I added the formulas and turned off autofill. Also yes on scripts but not add ons
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Yes, you can run scripts in Google Sheets in a browser on an iPad using Safari. However, add-ons are not available on iPad or iPhone and require a computer to use.

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4

When referencing
B2:B
of the Transactions sheet,
use
INDIRECT("B2:B")

Otherwise, it’s possible for a
B2:B
unwanted change to
B3:B
etc.

for operations that insert rows above row 2, like Manual Transaction or user edits.

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5

what is the specific syntax here

6

For example, this:

={"Calculated Month"; ARRAYFORMULA(MONTH(B2:B))}

becomes this:

={"Calculated Month"; ARRAYFORMULA(MONTH(INDIRECT("B2:B")))}
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7

thanks for your help.

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