This article was written by Michael Dew, a Vancouver lawyer who practices civil litigation. Click here for contact information and further details about Michael’s practice. This article provides only information, not legal advice. If you require legal advice you should consult a lawyer.
Purpose of the spreasheet: Categorizing data
The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet available for download below (see link at the very bottom of this page) contains macros that allow the user to rapidly categorize data. This is done by way of a form that allows one-click entering of category labels into a column in Excel. The different categories of data can then be tallied using the Sumif formula, or used in various other ways.
One obvious application for this spreadsheet is to categorize and tally household expenses, but it could be used for any situation in which a user wishes to categorize / label / tag data into 75 or fewer categories.
An application for this spreadsheet in the legal context is if one has a long list of expenses that one wants to tally into different categories. For example, in a personal injury claim, one may have a long date ordered list of expense receipts for Physio, Chiropractor, Acupuncture, Massage Therapy, etc. - the spreadsheet could be used to tag each amount and then tally the amounts in each category.