Why Categorize Bank Transactions in Excel?

Once you convert your monthly PDF bank statement to Excel using StatementPro, organizing raw vendor descriptions into meaningful expense categories (such as Software, Office Rent, Marketing, Travel, and Utilities) gives you immediate visibility into company spending patterns.

Using Excel Formulas to Automate Categorization

1. Simple Categorization with SEARCH and IFS

You can automatically assign category labels based on vendor text keywords using Excel formulas:

=IFS(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Amazon", B2)), "Office Supplies", ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Uber", B2)), "Travel", ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Google", B2)), "Advertising", TRUE, "Uncategorized")

2. Create a Category Lookup Table with XLOOKUP

Build a dedicated Mapping Table listing common vendor keywords alongside assigned General Ledger categories. Then use `XLOOKUP` with wildcards to categorize hundreds of transactions automatically.

3. Summarize Expenditure with Pivot Tables

After categorizing your transaction rows, select the entire dataset and create a Pivot Table to generate total monthly spending per expense category in seconds.