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Categorize bank transactions in Excel or Google Sheets without uploading them

You can do this with a keyword table and one formula. Which tool you use decides where your bank data goes, so that comes first.

Where does your data go?

• Excel on your computer (desktop app): the CSV is opened from your disk. Nothing is sent anywhere by the act of opening it. If you save the workbook to OneDrive or similar, that copy is in the cloud.
• Google Sheets: importing a file means uploading it to your Google account. That may be fine for you, but it is an upload. Decide whether you are comfortable with it before you import bank lines.
• A browser tool that runs in the page (like the categorizer linked below): the file is read in your tab and not uploaded. You can check that yourself in your browser's developer tools, Network tab.

The Excel method

1. Open the CSV through Data › From Text/CSV so you can check the delimiter and date format before the data loads. Plain double-click can misread dates (see our guide to day/month confusion).
2. Make a second sheet called Rules. Put a keyword in column A (for example TESCO, UBER, NETFLIX) and the category in column B (Groceries, Transport, Subscriptions). Do not leave blank cells inside the range, because an empty keyword matches every line.
3. On the transactions sheet, add a Category column. If the description is in column C, the first row could use this formula (pattern commonly used; we have not tested it in your version of Excel):
   =IFERROR(LOOKUP(2,1/ISNUMBER(SEARCH(Rules!$A$2:$A$50,C2)),Rules!$B$2:$B$50),"Other")
   It looks for each keyword inside the description and returns the category of the last keyword in the list that matches. Fill the formula down.
4. Insert a PivotTable with the month in rows, Category in columns and Amount as the values, to get monthly totals.

The Google Sheets method

The same idea works: a Rules sheet and a lookup formula. We have not tested that formula in Google Sheets, which can need ARRAYFORMULA around array operations. UNKNOWN. A PivotTable is under Insert › Pivot table.

What the manual method costs

• You build and maintain the keyword list yourself. Every new merchant needs a new row.
• Amounts can come as one signed column or as separate money in / money out columns; you have to handle that per bank.
• Transfers between your own accounts need to be kept out of spending totals by hand.

The shortcut

The categorizer does the keyword matching for you with built-in rules, detects the date, amount and currency columns, and lets you add your own rules, which are saved only in your browser. It runs inside the page, so the file is not uploaded. It is a free tool for one file (latest 3 months); Pro is a one-time unlock for more. Categories are automatic guesses, so check them before using the numbers for tax.

Source and honesty note

This page is our own explanation, not a bank's help page, so there is no bank source to cite. The statements about Excel and Google Sheets are general behaviour that we describe from knowledge, not something we tested for this page.

Then categorize it free, offline

Drop your bank CSV on the page and see every line sorted with monthly totals. It reads the file inside your browser tab.

Free: one file at a time, latest 3 months of it. CSV only, no PDF. Need the CSV first? See the bank export guides.