Sort a month of transactions.

Bookkeeping VAs start with one job: putting every transaction in the right box. Categorise a month and build a summary an owner can read in 30 seconds.

Tools needed
Google Sheets (free)
Time commitment
2 to 3 hours
Difficulty
Intermediate
01

The client brief

Mira is a freelance photographer. She downloaded a month of bank transactions and has no idea where her money went. Categorise everything and give her a one-page summary. This is bookkeeping support, not tax advice. Made-up client, fake data.

Bank export in a spreadsheet with 22 transactions and an empty Category column
What the client sent you. Tap to open full size.

Download the transactions (.csv)

02

Your deliverables

03

Do the task

1

Set up categories

Income, Equipment, Software, Travel, Meals, Marketing, Office, Personal, Ask client. Add them as a dropdown.

2

Categorise every row

Use the description and the amount. If you're not sure, choose Ask client. Guessing is how books go wrong.

3

Spot personal spending

Groceries and streaming don't belong in business books. Flag them. Don't delete them.

4

Build the summary

A second tab with SUMIF per category, plus total in, total out and the difference.

5

Add one chart

A simple bar chart of spending by category. One is enough.

6

Write your questions

Plain English, one per line: "Sep 14, $86 to Jake. Business or personal?"

Screenshots to capture for your portfolio

  • The categorised transactions
  • The summary tab with the chart
  • Your questions for the client
More tips
  • SUMIF example: =SUMIF(Transactions!E:E,"Software",Transactions!C:C)
  • Don't call it a tax report or give tax advice. That's her accountant's job.
  • Ready for real software? Xero has a free demo company you can practise in.
  • Colour the Ask client rows so they're easy to find.
Turn this into a portfolio piece
Add it to your work samples: the problem, what you did, the result, one screenshot. Or try another mock task
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