Managing categories
Categories are the building blocks of a household budget. Spendle comes with a default set that can be adjusted, extended or reordered as needed.
Where to find it
Section titled “Where to find it”Open More > Manage > Categories. Categories are ordered by group (Housing, Transport, Food, Household, and so on).
Creating a new category
Section titled “Creating a new category”-
Click + New category.
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Enter a name, group and color. The color appears in charts and reports.
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Choose the type: Automatic, Expense or Income. See Automatic or a fixed type.
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Turn on Transfer if the category is for bookings between your own accounts. See Glossary — Internal transfers.
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Save. The category is immediately available.
Automatic or a fixed type
Section titled “Automatic or a fixed type”Spendle adds up all transactions in a category. Money coming in and money going out partly cancel each other out. The type decides where this balance counts.
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Expense or Income: the category always counts as this type. Does more money come into an expense category than goes out, for example because of a refund? Then your total expenses are lower.
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Automatic: the balance of the category in the selected period decides the type.
- Positive balance: the category counts as income.
- Negative balance: the category counts as an expense.
- Zero balance: the budget decides the type.
So a category can count as income in one period and as an expense in another.
Renaming or moving categories
Section titled “Renaming or moving categories”Click a category to edit it. Name, color and group can all be changed. Historical transactions move along automatically.
Managing groups
Section titled “Managing groups”You manage groups through the categories themselves. See Managing groups.
Cleaning up categories
Section titled “Cleaning up categories”After an import, for example from Mijngeldzaken, you may have many categories you do not use. You can remove them in one go.
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Open the Unused tab. It shows the categories without transactions and without a budget. Only these categories are removed.
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Choose Clear unused in the action menu at the top right. Spendle asks you to confirm first.
The number next to a category counts only regular transactions. Split transactions are not counted. A category without a number can still have transactions. You see them when you open the category. Such a category is not removed.
Do you want to clean up a category that has transactions? Merge it with another category. See Merging.
Merging
Section titled “Merging”Are there two categories that should really be one? See Merging data.
Applying the Nibud template
Section titled “Applying the Nibud template”Via Update categories from template, the Spendle template Personal finance can be loaded. Existing categories are updated with the correct group and group type; missing categories are added. See Update categories to Nibud layout.