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My yearly expense file has more than 2,000 rows and the import was refused. How do I summarise it?

Split the file by date, for example January to June and July to December, summarise each half on its own, then put the two monthly tables together. The tool is tested up to 2,000 rows per file and refuses a bigger file outright, stating its row count, rather than reading part of it and handing you a short total you would not know was short.

Published · 3 min read

What exactly happened

We built a test file of 2,400 expenses across a year, 200 a month at 10 SAR each. Importing it into the Expense summary generator tool gave the message 'The file has 2,400 rows, above the tested limit of 2,000.' Not a single row was read, and the totals on screen did not change.

A few details worth knowing before you split:

  • The count covers data rows only, not the header, and completely blank rows are not counted.
  • A file of exactly 2,000 rows is accepted.
  • There is a second limit of 2 MB on file size, but rows usually run out first: our 2,400-row file was only about 65 KB. If yours is refused for size, it probably carries long columns you do not need, such as a full description of every transaction.

Split by date, not by count

Do not cut the file at row 2,000 wherever that falls, because the month where you cut ends up in both files and shows in both summaries as two partial totals. Cut at month boundaries, so each month appears in exactly one file and nothing is counted twice.

With our test file, the first half was 1,200 rows and gave January to June at 2,000.00 SAR each, 12,000.00 SAR in total. The second half, also 1,200 rows, gave July to December and 12,000.00 SAR. The year's total is the two figures added together, which you do yourself, since the tool never combines two files.

Step by step

  1. Sort the file in Excel by the date column, oldest first.
  2. Copy the header row and the January to June rows into a new file and save it as CSV UTF-8. Do the same for the rest of the year. If either half is still over 2,000 rows, split into quarters.
  3. Press 'Reset' to clear the example entries, then import the first file and download its summary as CSV.
  4. Import the second file, which replaces the first, and download its summary.
  5. Open both summaries in Excel and paste the 'By month' lines of the second under the first, and you have the full year.

Watch the categories and conversion

Each summary's category totals cover only its half of the year. For the year's shipping total, add the shipping line from both summaries, currency by currency. If you convert to one currency, type the same rates both times, or the two converted totals cannot be added fairly.

Common questions

Can I import two files at once?

No, the tool takes one file at a time, and importing a new one replaces the previous one. Only manual entries stay alongside an imported file.

Why not raise the limit?

Because it is the limit that was actually tested. The tool does not promise what has not been tested.