Assign a Category Based on Partial Match

[TheJax]

Hi,

Hoping someone has a solution for this. An accounting client has me going crazy trying to get this done:

He has a list of categories:
Security
Sewar
Comcast
Gas
Water
(to name a few)

What he would like is to have Excel search the cell he enters a description (we'll say its c1) and if there is a partial match on any part of the description, assign it to the right category. So if he enters ADT PAYMENT, Excel would automatically put SECURITY in A1. Can this be done with a formula?

Thanks.

 

[KillerOfGiants]

What do you show in Excel that connects the cell value "ADT PAYMENT" with the category "SECURITY"? Nothing in the cell with the payment has a match (partial or otherwise) with the category.

 

[TheJax]

That is actually part of my question - How can I "connect" ADT to the category SECURITY and then have Excel search the description and apply the correct category.

Thanks!

 

[KillerOfGiants]

If your entries (ADT PAYMENT) are fairly generic, you may just want to consider a separate column entry for category. In order for Excel to "search" the cell information, you would need to have consistent entries. If the entries each month are very consistent, you could create a table with two columns. Column 1, for example, would be the entries (ADT PAYMENT would be one of those entries), and column 2 in that table would be Category. Then when tabulating information, all entries would be associated with a category. Without information (excel only? used for other software? payments only? etc. a lot of information is missing and that's a different type of question/help request), much of this seems to be beyond the purview of answering a question (imho), and seems more like you are needing the creation of a file/data structure.

 

[TheJax]

If your entries (ADT PAYMENT) are fairly generic, you may just want to consider a separate column entry for category. In order for Excel to "search" the cell information, you would need to have consistent entries. If the entries each month are very consistent, you could create a table with two columns. Column 1, for example, would be the entries (ADT PAYMENT would be one of those entries), and column 2 in that table would be Category. Then when tabulating information, all entries would be associated with a category. Without information (excel only? used for other software? payments only? etc. a lot of information is missing and that's a different type of question/help request), much of this seems to be beyond the purview of answering a question (imho), and seems more like you are needing the creation of a file/data structure.

Thanks! Appreciate the info.