How can I track expenses by category in a personal finance workbook?

[Jerome Werner]

Hi,

I've set up a workbook with several sheets that have checkbook-entry
style layouts for each of my accounts including cash. It works pretty
well except I can't seem to associate categories to checkbook entries
(rows). Here's what I tried: I made a column and in it I put in
categories like "dining" or "rent." Then I tried to make a chart. The
problem is that the chart made a seperate bar (in a pie chart) for each
dining entry instead of accumulating them into one bar / piece of the
pie. Basically it's telling me how much of the pie each row is but I
want it to amalgamate rows when categories are similar. How can I go
about doing this? Thanks

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

You can summarize the data with a Pivot Table, and create a chart from that.

Add a heading to the list, e.g. Category
Select a cell in the table.
Choose Data>PivotTable and PivotChart Report
Select PivotChart report (with PivotTable report), click Next
Select the Data range, click Next
Click Layout
Drag the Category button to the Row area
Drag Category again to the data area, where it will become
Count of Category
Click OK, click Finish

A column chart will be created.
To change it to a pie chart, select the chart and choose
Chart>Chart Type.