Some of you folks out here are wizards so I thought I'd ask you.
I keep chipping away but this is going to take me weeks or months.

I'm trying to create a home budget

After downloading my statement from my bank I'd like to automatically
assign the category that the transactions belong to.

I have a list of payees that are assigned specific categories ie:
(payees!A1 Payees!B1)
Payees, Categories
Wal-mart , Household
Costco, Groceries
Costco Gas, Gasoline
Allstate, Insurance
Dennys, Eating out
albertsons, Groceries
Mervyns, Clothing
etc


The Transaction_detail comes in with a bunch of stuff ie:
(in worksheet January column B5)
DENNY'S #6739 SOUTH JORDAN UT Date 11/14/06 2433333432240004760575
5814
MERVYNS 00002949 SANDY UT Date 11/14/06 24333376288591142946824 5355
BURLINGTON COA00000794 MURRAY UT Date 11/14/06 24399006288320200161199
5651
JCPENNEY STORE 0231 SANDY UT Date 11/14/06 2433316628823423742798 5355
POS ALBERTSONS 370 E. 200 S. SALT LAKE CIT UT
POS COSTCO GAS #00487 11100 S. AUTO MALL
BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO #49057 DRAPER UT Date 10/17/06
24610436234232018594403 7841
REAMS FOOD STR.INC. SANDY UT Date 10/18/06 24433336291040001974168
5551


How do I take the payee, search the transaction detail and return the
category in the same row as the match of the payee in the transaction
detail?

For example I'd like:

Eating out, DENNY'S #6739 SOUTH JORDAN UT Date 11/14/06 ....
Clothing, MERVYNS 00002949 SANDY UT Date 11/14/06 ....
clothing, JCPENNEY STORE 0231 SANDY UT Date 11/14/06 ....
Groceries, POS ALBERTSONS 370 E. 200 S. SALT LAKE CIT UT
Gasoline, POS COSTCO GAS #00487 11100 S. AUTO MALL
entertain., BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO #49057 DRAPER UT Date 10/17/06 ....
etc.

I can do the vlookup, but I can't figure out the search in string
thing.

Thanks for your help




--
mikpits