Skip to main content

How to import transaction history from another tool

Importing your transactions history from another tool can be an easier way to get quickly get started with Tiller.

Written by Heather Phillips

We hope to improve this workflow. If it's important to you to be able to bring over your transaction history and categorizations write to us at beta@tiller.com to let us know how we can improve this workflow.

1. Connect your accounts

First, you'll want to connect all the same financial institutions to Tiller. If for some reason one of them won't connect you can add it manually but skip the CSV Import step.

Add accounts from the Tiller Console at my.tiller.com/accounts

2. Create your first spreadsheet

  1. Create a spreadsheet from the Tiller Console and link all the same accounts to the sheet.

    1. For Google Sheets, the data will fill in immediately as part of the sheet creation process.

    2. For Microsoft Excel, follow the Install Help tab steps in the workbook after you open your downloaded copy of the Foundation Template

3. Prepare your transaction history

You'll need to export the transaction history from the tool you were using previously. The steps for this are going to vary depending on the tool, and we don't have the explicit steps documented for every possible tool. Usually this option is somewhere on the Transactions view in that tool. Make sure this is a CSV format or can be saved as a CSV.

Next, you'll want to open the exported file and double check that there is a single header row in row 1 and that the Amount data follows one of these formats:

  • A column with the header “Amount” where the amounts are positive and negative using $0.00 format.

  • A column with the header "Amount" where the amounts are absolute values (no positive or negative) and a second column with the header “Type” that contains only the values “credit” or “debit” to denote whether the transaction should be positive or negative.

Read more about supported amount types here.

Some exports come with multiple "header" type rows, but Tiller needs just a single header.

4. Prevent duplicates

Since you'll be importing the transaction history from another tool and it's likely that Tiller already filled the same data in uncategorized, you'll want to make sure you don't end up with duplicates in your spreadsheet by following these steps.

For Microsoft Excel

Clear all transactions from the Transactions sheet (make sure to leave row 1) for accounts that are in the CSV

For Google Sheets

You can either clear the Transactions sheet manually (make sure to leave row 1) or use the Data Clean Up tool in the Console.

To use the Data Clean Up tool:

  1. Navigate to the Tiller Console

  2. Select the spreadsheet from the left side navigation

  3. Click the gear icon in the upper right and choose Clean Up Data

  4. Select an account in the dropdown and then choose to Remove all transactions. Do not remove balance data.

  5. Repeat for each account that's in your export.

5. Import the transaction history

  1. Navigate to the Tiller Console

  2. On the Accounts page choose Import CSV

  3. Select the CSV file that has all your transaction history

  4. Follow the prompts to map accounts and columns

  5. Make note of the Import Tag

You can read more about using the CSV Import tool here.

For Google Sheets, the data will fill automatically.

For Microsoft Excel, launch the Tiller Money Feeds add-in and fill the data.

6. Clean up categories

The Categories from your CSV were filled into the Category Hint column out to the far right in the Transactions sheet.

  1. Use a simple =unique formula on a new tab in your spreadsheet to find the unique values from the Category Hint column.

  2. Paste these unique category values into the Categories sheet in column A. Be sure to apply a group to each category and correctly mark it as Income, Expense, or Transfer.

  3. Copy/paste the Category Hint data into the Category column in the Transactions sheet.

Important Notes about the Imported Data

Since the transaction history you imported was imported directly into Tiller's database for each respective account, if you create a new spreadsheet you'll get some duplicate transactions, the one Tiller automatically pulled from the bank, and the other from the CSV you imported.

We do not automatically deduplicate the Imported History with what's already in our database.

To address this you have a couple options:

  1. Remove the Imported history from the Accounts section > dropdown next to Import CSV > Import History

  2. Use the Import Tag column to filter the Transactions sheet and remove the Transactions that don't have the original Import Tag filled

Did this answer your question?