I am attempting to build a spreadsheet to track my personal finances (have
MS Money, don't like). When I am entering a description of a bill, I would
like other cells to automatically populate. For instance, if the
description of the bill is Atco Electric, then I would like one cell beside
it to automatically indicate house, and the one beside that to indicate
utility. The first time I input this description, I don't expect the
spreadsheet to know the descriptions of the bills, but I would like to build
it so that if you tell it what the bill was in January, it remembers the
category to place it in when you input it in February. Has anyone attempted
something like this? Any examples on the web?

I have thought of ways I can do this with the match/index comands, however,
they are not as user friendly/powerful as I would like.

One drawback is Excel's faulty autocomplete. If it worked reliably, it
would make it much easier to input the same description month after month
(because I need an exact match for the match/index functions to work), and
have it spelled the same way every month. Is there anyway to repair the
autocomplete command or has someone figured out how to do it through VBA?

Thank you,
Chris

Hi Chris,

This probably won't be much help, but I did the same
thing. Quicken and Money have too many bells and whistles
for my taste. In XL, I used drop downs for just about
everything. You pretty much know all your regular and
routine expenditures and transactions. You simply put
those items in the drop downs. My version is 99% point and
click. This keeps everything nice and simple - no monster
formulas and no miles of code.

As far as AutoComplete goes, it's not faulty, that's just
how it works - not very well!

Just some thoughts

Biff

-----Original Message-----
I am attempting to build a spreadsheet to track my
personal finances (have
MS Money, don't like). When I am entering a description
of a bill, I would
like other cells to automatically populate. For
instance, if the
description of the bill is Atco Electric, then I would
like one cell beside
it to automatically indicate house, and the one beside
that to indicate
utility. The first time I input this description, I
don't expect the
spreadsheet to know the descriptions of the bills, but I
would like to build
it so that if you tell it what the bill was in January,
it remembers the
category to place it in when you input it in February.
Has anyone attempted
something like this? Any examples on the web?

I have thought of ways I can do this with the match/index
comands, however,
they are not as user friendly/powerful as I would like.

One drawback is Excel's faulty autocomplete. If it
worked reliably, it
would make it much easier to input the same description
month after month
(because I need an exact match for the match/index
functions to work), and
have it spelled the same way every month. Is there
anyway to repair the
autocomplete command or has someone figured out how to do
it through VBA?

Thank you,
Chris




.

Chris
That sounds like an interesting little project. I would use the
drop-downs that Biff suggested in your column of Descriptions. That would
preclude spelling errors. However, I would insert the drop-downs with VBA
to preclude the file from getting excessively large. The VBA would
automatically remove the drop-downs from each row as the row is completed
You would use VBA code to update your list of descriptions as well as
the lists of categories when you manually enter a description and matching
categories that are not currently in the lists. The whole thing would be
automatic.
Post back or contact me direct (remove "nospam" from my email address)
if this sounds like what you want. If you contact me direct, send a small
file with a sample of what you want this whole thing to look like. HTH
Otto
"C. Bailey" <please.reply@newsgroup wrote in message
news:D1X0b.1445$K44.419@edtnps84...
I am attempting to build a spreadsheet to track my personal finances (have
MS Money, don't like). When I am entering a description of a bill, I
would
like other cells to automatically populate. For instance, if the
description of the bill is Atco Electric, then I would like one cell
beside
it to automatically indicate house, and the one beside that to indicate
utility. The first time I input this description, I don't expect the
spreadsheet to know the descriptions of the bills, but I would like to
build
it so that if you tell it what the bill was in January, it remembers the
category to place it in when you input it in February. Has anyone
attempted
something like this? Any examples on the web?

I have thought of ways I can do this with the match/index comands,
however,
they are not as user friendly/powerful as I would like.

One drawback is Excel's faulty autocomplete. If it worked reliably, it
would make it much easier to input the same description month after month
(because I need an exact match for the match/index functions to work), and
have it spelled the same way every month. Is there anyway to repair the
autocomplete command or has someone figured out how to do it through VBA?

Thank you,
Chris