=INDEX(Sheet2!$B$1:$B$10,
MIN(IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH("*"&Sheet2!$A$1:$A$10&"*",A1 ,0)),
ROW(Sheet2!$A$1:$A$10))))

(all in one cell)

This is an array formula. Hit ctrl-shift-enter instead of enter. If you do it
correctly, excel will wrap curly brackets {} around your formula. (don't type
them yourself.)

Adjust the range to match--but you can't use the whole column.


wrote:

Hello excel gurus. I've got a spreadsheet of my bank transactions. If
the transaction description contains a keyword from another list, I'd
like to assign it a category from the next column over.

For example:

Sheet1 has transaction descriptions like:

POS DB WAL-MART # 9100 08/09 1030 HUNTERS CO
THE OLIVE GARD KNOXVILLE TN
POS DB TARGET T20 9100 08/04 4700 NEW HARVES

Sheet2 has a list of keywords and categories like:

WAL-MART Entertainment - Toys
TARGET Entertainment - Toys
OLIVE GARD Food - Dinner

I was using vlookup but there are problems because many vendors include
the transaction date in the description like the walmart and target
items above.

Any suggestions?

--

Dave Peterson