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Using Google Sheets QUERY to Visualize Your Spending
Using Google Sheets QUERY to Visualize Your Spending

Learn how to use QUERY in Google Sheets to build custom spending reports.

Heather Phillips avatar
Written by Heather Phillips
Updated over a week ago

Note: this is available for Tiller powered Google Sheets only.

One of our favorite power-features that’s built into Google Sheets is the QUERY formula. We use QUERY formulas extensively throughout our finance spreadsheet templates to provide concise reports based on the transaction and balance data that Tiller is automatically feeding into your spreadsheet each day.

Here's what a QUERY against medical expenses in a transactions sheet by month looks like: 

=QUERY(Transactions!A:Z, "
SELECT K, -1 * SUM(D)
  WHERE C LIKE 'Medical'
    AND A > DATE '2015-12-31'
    AND A < DATE '2017-01-01'
  GROUP BY K
  LABEL -1 * SUM(D) 'Monthly Medical'
  FORMAT K          'yyyy-MMM',
        -1 * SUM(D) '$#,##0.00'
")

And here's the output in a new blank sheet:

Get started using this query by 

  1. Add a new sheet to your Tiller Sheet (hint: click the plus sign in the lower left corner)

  2. Copy the query above & paste this query into A2 (the first cell in this new sheet)

  3. Change the word "Medical" in the QUERY to whatever category you'd like to see in your output sheet.

  4. Change the date range in the QUERY to pull in only the data from the time period you want to see.

  5. Press enter or click in another cell.

Ta da!
Now you have your very own QUERY pulling in your spending by month for a select category.

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