If you need to migrate financial data from one spreadsheet to another you can use these basic manual steps below. If you're migrating from one Google Sheet to another, you might consider using the Tiller Migration Helper add-on to automate these steps.
⚠️ Review the Migration Helper's Installation Notes, which include disclaimers about the sensitive Google Drive permissions required by this add-on, before installing this add-on.
Table of Contents
Set up a new spreadsheet
Before you can migrate anything you need to set up your new spreadsheet.
Log in to the Tiller Console at https://my.tillerhq.com/
Click "Create a spreadsheet"
Choose "Start with Google Sheets" or "Start with Microsoft Excel"
Launch Tiller Money Feeds
For Google Sheets, open the Extensions menu at the top of the Google Sheet and choose Tiller Money Feeds (near the bottom of the Extensions menu) > "Launch" or if you don't have Tiller Money Feeds installed choose Add-ons (near the top of the Extensions menu) > Get Add-ons > search for Tiller Money Feeds and install then launch.
For Microsoft Excel, launch the Tiller Money Feeds add-in from the Data ribbon or Insert ribbon > My Add-ins or if you don't have the add-in installed open the Insert ribbon > My Add-ins > Store and search for Tiller Money Feeds
Link the spreadsheet and link the accounts that were linked to your previous spreadsheet
Click the "Fill" button in the sidebar to fill the sheet with transaction and balance data. This will bring in all these transactions for these accounts into this sheet. We will clear them out in a future step or use the Migration Helper add-on for Google Sheets to clean them up.
Migrate Your Categories
ℹ️ Double check that the column order in the Categories sheet is the same in both the old and new sheet. If it's not, click, hold and drag the column header letter of individual columns in the old sheet so they match the order in the new sheet.
Open the Categories sheet in the original spreadsheet.
Select row 2 in the Category column by clicking the row number.
Hold the shift key.
Scroll down and select the last category row by right clicking the row number.
Choose copy.
Open the Categories sheet in the new spreadsheet.
Select all the category data starting with row two and press the delete key to clear the example category data.
Right click cell A2 and choose Paste Special > Paste Values Only to paste in your categories list.
Migrate Your Transactions
ℹ️ Make sure that you have the same accounts linked to the two sheets on the Tiller Console.
ℹ️ Double check that the column order in the Transactions sheet is the same in both the old and new sheet. If it's not, click, hold and drag the column header letter of individual columns in the old sheet so they match the order in the new sheet.
Navigate to the Transactions sheet in the new spreadsheet, click the row number to select row 2. Do not select the header row.
Scroll down to the last transaction in the list, hold down the shift key and then click the last row number.
Press the delete or backspace key to clear the contents of the rows.
Navigate to the Transactions sheet in your original Tiller spreadsheet.
Click the row number to select the first transaction in the list, starting with row 2 if that’s the first transaction you want to copy over.
Scroll down to the last transaction you’d like to copy over into the new sheet, hold down the shift key, then click the last row number.
Right click the row number and choose copy.
Navigate back to the Transactions sheet in the new spreadsheet and right click row 2, then choose Paste Special > Paste Values Only.
Double check your categorizations and correct any errors if you’ve renamed any categories.
Migrate Your Manual Accounts' Balance History (optional)
ℹ️ You only need to perform these steps if you have been manually tracking non-automated accounts.
ℹ️ Double check that the column order in the Balance History sheet is the same in both the old and new sheet. If it's not, click, hold and drag the column header letter of individual columns in the old sheet so they match the order in the new sheet.
1. In the original spreadsheet, open the Balance History sheet
2. Select all the data in the sheet and turn on the filter.
3. Sort the sheet by the Account column.
4. Unhide the Account ID and/or Index columns. (click small triangles between column header letters to unhide hidden columns). Some sheets will not have Account ID, and some will not have Index.
5. Copy all rows for any entry that has an account ID that begins with manual: or an index number of 9999
6. Carefully copy/paste these rows into the bottom of the Balance History sheet in the new spreadsheet paying close attention to column order.
7. In the new sheet, add the manual accounts using the Tiller Money Feeds add-on using the steps in this guide.
8. Select all the data in the Balance History sheet and turn on the filter.
9. Sort the sheet by the Account column.
10. Copy/paste the Account ID assigned by the Tiller Money Feeds add-on into the cells for all the prior manually added balance history entries for the non-automated account.
Migrate Your AutoCat Rules
In Google Sheets:
Copy the URL of your new sheet
Open your old sheet and right click the "AutoCat" tab
Choose "Copy to > Existing spreadsheet"
Paste the URL of your new sheet into the bottom of the window that appears
Click "Ok"
In your new sheet, rename the "Copy of AutoCat" tab to just "AutoCat" (double click the tab name to rename it)
In Microsoft Excel:
Install the AutoCat sheet into your Excel workbook using the Tiller Money Feeds add-in for Excel
Add any necessary columns to the AutoCat sheet in your new workbook that you want from your old workbook
Copy and paste your AutoCat rules from the old workbook to the new one
Migrate Your Budget Targets
Since we have had several budget templates over the years there may be a few places you'll find your budget targets and these are general tips on migrating budget targets vs explicit steps.
Our latest Foundation Template budget has 12 budget months in the Categories sheet by default (you may have to expand the monthly budget columns.)
If your old and new sheet also have 12 budget months in the Categories sheet, and the months in row 1 are the same, you can just copy/paste your budget values from the old sheet to the new sheet.
If your old sheet does not have 12 month columns in the Categories sheet, but the new ones does, just reference the budget values in your budget dashboard and type them into column E on the Categories sheet in your new sheet.
Migrate from Excel to Google Sheets
You can use the same manual steps above to carefully copy/paste data from your Excel workbook to a Google Sheet or vice versa.
If you'd like to use the Tiller Migration Helper add-on you can try these steps:
Save your Excel workbook as a CSV
Upload the CSV to your Google Drive
Open the CSV file in Google Drive then choose to open as a Google Sheet when prompted at the top