A category says what a transaction was for. Your Overview, Reports, budgets and Finn all add your money up by category, so a well-filed month means numbers you can trust.
How new transactions get a category
Whether a transaction comes from a bank connection, a statement or you typed it in, we file it in this order:
- Your rules. If one of your rules matches, it decides. Rules always come first.
- Your past choices. If you've filed this merchant yourself before, the new transaction follows your latest choice.
- Our own checks and AI. We recognise common merchants, and AI suggests the most specific category that fits. If we aren't confident, we leave it Uncategorized rather than guess.
We don't guess e-Transfers and other transfers: one could be rent, a gift or money moving to your own savings. They stay uncategorized until you file them. When both sides of a transfer are in Finly Money, we match them and leave them out of your totals for you.
Change a category
Find the transaction
Go to Transactions.
Open the category
On a computer, click the category on the row. On a phone, tap the transaction, then tap its category.
Pick a new one
Search by name, or choose from Recent, Spending, Income or Transfers. It saves straight away.
Only that transaction changes. New transactions from the same merchant follow your choice from then on, and each time you change a category we offer Always file … under …? to refile the past ones too with a rule. Choose Close on it to pause these suggestions for a while, or for good. To change lots at once, see change many transactions at once.
Category groups
The Categories page, a tab in Settings, lists every category in groups by what it's for: Housing, Bills, Food, Transportation, Travel, Shopping, Health & Personal, Lifestyle, Money & Obligations, Income, Transfers, and Other for your own categories that don't fit a group. On a phone, Settings is under More.
Open any category to see What counts, what's Filed elsewhere (Costco and other warehouse clubs go to Warehouse Clubs, for example) and how it earns On credit cards. The search box finds a category by name or by what goes in it, so typing Costco, Uber or Netflix shows you where those land.
Categories that match how cards pay
Our categories are split the way Canadian credit cards pay their bonus rates. Gas & EV Charging, Public Transit, Taxi & Rideshare and Parking are separate, for example, because cards often pay a different rate on each.
The category a purchase is filed under is also what it earns as in the card rewards tracker, so fixing a category fixes the reward too.