Categories
Sort your money into income, expense and other categories, group them, and rename, hide or merge them as your business changes.
Every money-in and money-out record has a category, for example Service income, Rent or Roofing materials. Categories make up your profit and loss report, your budgets and the "Top expenses" on the Overview.
Go to Finances → More → Categories.
The three kinds
| Kind | What goes in it | Counts in profit? |
|---|---|---|
| Income | Money customers pay you: service income, sales, course fees | Yes |
| Expense | What you spend to run the business: rent, materials, fuel, advertising, wages | Yes |
| Other money | Money that isn't income or an expense: the owner putting money in or taking it out, loans, taxes paid to the government, balance adjustments | No |
The setup steps filled in a starter list for your kind of business. Expense categories come in groups such as Office costs, People, Marketing and Operations.
Each category shows how many records use it. Click its name to see those records.
Add a category
- Click Add a category.
- Type the Name (1), for example
Roofing materials. - Choose the Kind (2): Income, Expense or Other money.
- Type a Group (3) if you want one, for example
Job costs. Groups you already use are suggested. - Click Add category (4).
Change, reorder or hide a category
Each category has links on the right:
- ↑ and ↓ move it up or down within its group.
- Change renames it, or moves it to another group.
- Hide takes it out of the lists you choose from. It stays in past records and reports. Click Show to bring it back.
- Delete shows only for a category that no record, bill, invoice or budget uses.
A category in use can't change its kind (it would change past reports). Make a new category and merge the old one into it instead.
Merge two categories
If you have two categories for the same thing (for example Fuel and Vehicle and fuel):
- Click Merge next to the one you want to remove.
- Choose the category to Merge into. Both need to be the same kind.
- Click Merge.
Every record, bill, budget and import rule moves to the category you chose, then the old one is removed. This can't be undone. Records in closed months must be reopened first.
Categories marked "Automatic"
Some categories have an Automatic label, for example Sales, Course fees, Affiliate commissions, Wages and salaries and Balance adjustments. Finances uses them for records it adds by itself. You can rename them, but you can't delete them: hide them if you don't use them.
"Uncategorized"
Lines you import from a bank statement without choosing a category go to Uncategorized income or Uncategorized expense. The Overview shows records have no category yet until you sort them. Click that line, tick the records and use Change category in the bar above the list.