To maintain continuity with my previous accounting solution, I’ll need to create a good number of categories, many more that appear on the default sheet.
Should I/Can I create a separate category tab(s) for my own business(s) or just delete/append the current list of categories?
I also plan to use tags to separate my various personal and business activities. It’s easy enough to add a column in the foundation spreadsheet however to I also need to append the categories tab with a list of my tags so that they appear in the dropdown?
Can I create an isolated tags list so that only tabs (and not categories) appear in the tabs column drop down? Thanks for any assistance/ideas!
Hi, there. Some answers (from my perspective–others may suggest alternatives):
-On categories, you can create as many categories as you like (there may be some limit where the rows are no longer properly formatted, but that’s easy enough to fix). You are in no way wedded to the provided categories.
-For tags, I would recommend following the Tiller advice on setting up tags.
-The Tag Manager community solution by @jpfieber provides a nice solution for getting tags to show up in the Tags column in your Transactions sheet.
You may have figured out that you can simply paste all your additional categories from a column in your spreadsheet into the Categories sheet and go. Select “Expense” for type and add a budget (or don’t).
@ninneman thank you, I actually considered that approach though it seems like a good opportunity to start from scratch and remove extra layers of duplication, as well as unnecessary clutter from my category list. Still, I do love the ease and flexibility that tiller offers in this regard. Much appreciated! ~Bill A.
We have two linked accounts: one for my bills and budget, and one for the joint accounts. I link my personal CCd to my spreadsheet, and the joint CCd to the joint spreadsheet.
I would assume that you’d want two different spreadsheets - one for you, and one for your business. That will help you enormously at tax time, when you need to identify deductible expenses.
Note that you should only add new categories to the END of the standard categories that appear automatically. I did that (inserted rows to keep the categories alphabetical), and it “broke” the Google sheet.
Thank you, Sandi. Since I have multiple businesses, I opted for a single spreadsheet, along with tags to segment the personal vs various. I appreciate the tip about not changing the default categories in the spreadsheet.
If you operate your business separate from your personal finances, I would highly recommend feeding your business accounts into one Tiller sheet, and your personal accounts into a different Tiller sheet. This will likely result in a more elegant solution that will be easier to operate rather than employing tags to differentiate business vs. personal.
I also plan to use tags to separate my various personal and business activities. It’s easy enough to add a column in the foundation spreadsheet however to I also need to append the categories tab with a list of my tags so that they appear in the dropdown?
Can I create an isolated tags list so that only tabs (and not categories) appear in the tabs column drop down? Thanks for any assistance/ideas!
I have something you might like to try.
For Tags specifically, I have a separate worksheet (ExtraStuffSheet) with a column called ‘Tag Validation’ and it has a formula in Row 2.
=UNIQUE(Transactions!I2:I)
My Tags column is I.
Then, in my Transactions sheet, in my Tags column (everything except the header) I have a Data Validation rule for Transactions!I2:I
The Rule is: =ExtraStuffSheet!$A$2:$A$100
It seems counter-intuitive, but on my Transactions sheet, I can type in anything I want as a Tag, and then it is automatically added to the list that the tags are validated on. That way, it shows up again as a dropdown for any future transactions that you want to tag.
Thank you, this is useful! Even more, it would be great to see a dialog that contained similar tags as I enter a new one, so that I don’t create duplicates. Is that possible?
That could be accomplished with Apps Script, but my experience with Apps Script in google sheets tells me it would not be performant enough to be useful.