The Tiller Money Feeds add-on for Google Sheets has a Transaction Splitter tool to help you automate splitting your transactions among multiple categories. We don’t yet have this feature for Microsoft Excel, but hope to have it soon.
Splitting basics
Select a transaction you want to split in your Transactions sheet.
Launch the Tiller Money Feeds add-on from the Extensions menu at the top of your Google Sheet
Click "Split" under Transactions to open the Split Transaction tool.
Adjust the amount and apply a category to start splitting (e.g. $55 of the $200 Costco purchase was “Household”)
Click “Add split” and the add-on will insert the remaining amount into the next split’s amount field for you.
Modify descriptions and other fields as needed
You can modify the note, tags, and description as needed by clicking the small black triangle at the bottom of each split box to expand additional editing options.
If you don’t see Note and Tag in your sidebar for a split it means you don’t have those columns in your Transactions sheet.
Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you add and customize all required splits.
Click “Split transaction” to split the transaction and apply changes in the Transactions sheet.
You can also re-use splits and pre-fill the Transaction Splitter with the Saved Splits feature.
About Notes & Tags
If you have a Note column in your Transactions sheet you can customize the split’s notes in the add-on sidebar. If you do not have a Note column, but want to add one, you can insert a column to the left of the Account column and then reload the Transaction Splitter tool in the sidebar to get this option to show up for a split. The Transaction Splitter tool will prepend notes you add in the sidebar to any existing notes for the transaction.
If you add a Split Details column to your Transactions sheet the splitter will add details about the split, which include the split amount, the original amount, the original description for the transaction, and the date it was split. This “auto note” will no longer appear in the Note column as it did in previous versions of the split tool.
If you have a Tags column in your Transactions sheet you can customize Tags for a split. If you do not have a Tags column but want to add one you can insert a column to the left of the Account column and then reload the Transaction Splitter tool in the sidebar to get this option to show up for a split. Multiple tags can be applied and should be separated by a comma.
Keyboard shortcuts
You can use the basic tab and enter keyboard commands to move between fields more intuitively in the Transaction Splitter tool.
Saved Splits
Now you can “save” your splits for re-use again the next time a similar transaction occurs. This is super handy if you like to track your paycheck deductions, itemize your mortgage payment, share bills with a partner, or always ask for the same amount of cash back at the grocery store.
When you have the Saved Splits sheet present in your Google Sheet the Transaction Splitter sidebar will give you the option to choose a Saved Split from a dropdown (it takes a few seconds to check for this sheet and load when you first access the Transaction Splitter tool). Select a Saved Split and it will pre-populate the sidebar with all your split details.
Getting the Saved Splits sheet
Right click the Saved Splits tab and choose “Copy to”
Paste in the URL of your Tiller sheet at the bottom of this window and then choose “Select”
In your Tiller sheet double click the new tab “Copy of Saved Splits” rename it Saved Splits
Setting up Saved Splits
To create a Saved Split you’ll want to give the split a name and use the same name for all rows that make up the split and then fill in the details.
You can enter explicit amounts as $ or you can use % in the Amount column. You can also leave the amount field blank. Tip: leave it blank for all the rows for a Saved Split if you want to use this tool for splitting out paycheck deductions and your paycheck and deductions vary each pay cycle.
For any rows where the amount is left blank for a Saved Split, the split remainder will be applied evenly across rows with an empty Amount value with uneven cents remainders being applied to the first row with a blank Amount value.
You can also include description, notes, and tags details in your Saved Splits.
Using Saved Splits
Select the transaction you want to split
Open the Transaction Splitter from Tiller Money Feeds
Select your Saved Split from the dropdown menu
Click Split Transaction
If you choose a transaction that doesn’t match the total of your Saved Splits the sidebar will notify you of the difference. This may be an indication that you chose the wrong transaction, the total value has changed since you created the Saved Split, or you’re intentionally splitting a transaction that will have a value greater or less than the original transaction’s amount (e.g. paycheck deductions). If you decide to choose “Split Transaction” you’ll be prompted to choose how you’d like to deal with the remainder.
You can prorate the remainder across all splits (choose Yes) or have the total amounts not equal the original transaction’s amount (choose No). In a scenario where you’re splitting paycheck deductions you would want to choose “No” on this prorate dialog.
ℹ️ If you make changes on the Saved Splits sheet you’ll need to reload the Transaction Splitter by going back to the Tools menu then selecting Transaction Splitter again in order for the sidebar to pull in those changes.
Troubleshooting
Required column is missing
The Splitter tool requires the 'Description', 'Amount', 'Category', 'Transaction ID' columns to be present in your Transactions sheet. If one of these columns does not exist or is misspelled in the Transactions sheet the add-on cannot split the transaction and you will see an error message "A required column is missing".
To fix:
Add the missing required column by inserting a column in your Transactions sheet and giving it the appropriate header name
Re-run the Transaction Splitter tool in the add-on
Unable to split transaction
If you see an error that indicates "Unable to split transaction" it might mean that you have data validation errors in a column that the splitter is trying to edit.
To fix:
Make sure the transaction you're trying to split does not have any data validation errors (dropdown menus with red triangles) in any cells. Be sure to scroll all the way right and left to review each cell in the transaction's row for errors.
