=LOOKUP(99,SEARCH(Sheet2!$A$1:$A$10,A1),Sheet2!$B$ 1:$B$10)

(Note: if there's more than one matching category this gives the last
match.)

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?