Forum Discussion
cut and paste in excel
Just off the top of my head, though, I can’t help but wonder why you need to be cutting and pasting in the first place. If this is a check register, as it appears, there are other methods in Excel, to extract date from one place to another. So I’m wondering whether re-thinking how you use Excel might be more helpful.
I’m speaking as one who has not only a check register, but also a register of several credit card transactions—all integrated in one large register—from which I extract summary reports of spending by category. The extraction in my case is through the Pivot Table capability, which also allows drilling down to underlying particulars.
So let’s see if we can help you re-think your design.
- mathetesJan 03, 2020Silver Contributor
Lee -- you appear to be doing far too much "manually." That is what I suspected from the reference you made at the start to "cutting and pasting." So far as I can tell, from looking at the file you uploaded [thank you, by the way], you do indeed copy things over from your check register tab to your Bills tab (or vice versa).
This file you sent is for 2020, which has just begun, so there isn't much to work with there. I'm going to attach a purely "demo" file I created for somebody else here, to show how Pivot Table could be used to summarize data by payee (or, better, by category) and by month. And Pivot Table could do it "automatically" differentiating between checks/bill paid and those anticipated, etc.
If you'd be willing to upload your check register from 2019 I'd be happy to show you how Pivot Table could do that in your case. Short of that--and given privacy concerns, you might understandably prefer NOT to do so--this sample might show you enough to do it on your own.
Let me, though, take a few minutes to tell you the steps to go through.
- Enter each check or payment transaction (credit card, auto pay, etc.), with date, payee, amount, budget category.
- If you are entering anticipated but unpaid transactions as well, you should add a column that indicates "Paid/Unpaid"-- and use that in each case changing it from Unpaid to Paid as appropriate. That's an IF, you notice. Personally, I only track the ones actually paid. And I'll say more about that shortly.**
- Make all these entries in the form of an Excel table, which means NO BLANK ROWS. I notice your register includes a section for the current month, but you can accomplish that by including the DATE as part of each row. If you want to see all of the January (or any other month) transactions, you can use the DATA....FILTER capability to filter your database.
- Once you get a Pivot Table running, you can drill down from any month and category cell to see the underlying transactions.
So the point of all of this is: keep your register as a well-designed database, and use the capabilities of Excel (specifically the Pivot Table) to summarize, while retaining the ability to drill down for specifics (again through Pivot Table. In my very simple example file, if you click on "House" under "January" you'll see the two detail rows that went into that summary.
**My own expense tracking workbook contains a huge file of all bills paid (through the "Bill Pay" function at my bank), checks written, credit card transactions from several cards. Also all deposits. I populate that database by downloading from the bank(s) involved and (yes, manually, so far, although I'm planning in 2020 to improve my method so I can just import data in a consistent fashion even though the various banks don't report it that way).... I do semi-manually go through and apply budget categories and sub-categories to each transaction. And then, click on "Refresh" and the Pivot Table is updated by category by month showing how much we've spent. So the only data I enter is the budget categorization stuff...the rest is entered ONCE only, in the form of a download from each bank. No cutting and pasting from one page in my workbook to another. THAT is just not taking advantage of Excel's wonderful abilities.
I can tell you more, and as said, would be happy to show you with your own data but would not want to ask you to upload all actual data from last year. If you could render it less "true" but still very representative of reality. that might work well.
- LeeTooJan 04, 2020Copper Contributor
Thanks for your input about Pivot Tables.
Before I retired I spent 30 years in the office equipment industry serving many major accounts where Pivot Tables were very useful so I do have a background with them.
Now I'm retired and my financial life has changed quite a bit so I'm not really keeping track of my expenses for write-offs as I did in the past when my income would fluctuate a lot. Due to this, I have tried to simplify my ways into something that my wife would understand.
When I open my checkbook it only takes a few minutes (if that) to enter my entries for the day and the nice thing about this is that I balance with the bank every time eliminating the need to justify with my bank of a monthly basis. My checkbook balances with every entry so at this time I don't feel the need for Pivot tables.
My concern is that when I copy and paste I have the ability to Paste Special. When I cut and paste I don't have that option to Paste Special. I think that I have found the resolution to my problem however I really do appreciate your input and response time to my inquiry.
Thanks so much!
Have a Great Day!
Lee
- mathetesJan 04, 2020Silver Contributor
Hi, Lee. I too am in my retired years (since 2002), and my wife just finally persuaded me to create a budget sheet so we can manage our finances a bit more carefully.
It's in that connection that I've again used the Pivot Table (which I also used during my working years), for its ability to summarize expenses by category and month.
If all you're doing is tracking check register activity and tracking your current balance (to make sure the bank has it right, of course)...then the Pivot Table would be less relevant. I'd still encourage you to accomplish even the check register by creating it as a single (legitimate) Excel table, and use Data....Filter (or Slicing, whichever is more suited to your situation) to differentiate between paid and written/planned-but-unpaid. A single column could note that difference, and this would eliminate the need to cut and paste from one list to another. Adding an IF clause to the formula that tracks current balance would eliminate from consideration those still in the "unpaid" category. And you wouldn't need to worry about whether or not the format was carrying over.
I do realize I'm writing as something of a nit-picking-database-purist, though. It just pains me to see people like you do something manually (cut & paste) even though it only takes a minute at most, to move a transaction from the unpaid to the paid list. And I do believe it would be clear to your wife! She might even appreciate more fully how brilliant you are. 😉
Happy New Year! Enjoy your retirement.
John