Skip to main content

Categories

You can manage your categories in the budget page. Actual supports both expense and income categories.

Get some background information and recommendations on budget categories in our starting fresh guide.

Add a Category​

  1. Hover over the category group and click the + (Add category) button

    Hovering over the Usual Expenses group shows the Add category button

  2. Type the name of the new category and press

    Enter

    A new category called Pets being added to the Usual Expenses group

Adding a Category Group​

Scroll to the bottom of the budget sheet and select Add group

The Add group button above the Income group

Only one income group can ever exist and it cannot be deleted.

Renaming or Deleting a Category​

  1. Hover over the category and press the down arrow

    Hovering over the Food category shows a down arrow next to its name

  2. Select Rename or Delete from the menu

    The category menu with Rename, Hide and Delete

Categories are organized into groups and the same actions as above can be performed on groups.

Merging Categories​

Let's say you have two categories that are the same but you want to delete one.

The budget with two similar categories, Food and Foods

Hover over the category and select the drop down that appears and select Delete

The category menu with Rename, Hide and Delete

If the category you're deleting has a positive balance OR has been used for existing transactions you will be presented with a box to select which category the balance and/or transactions should be moved to.

The Confirm Delete dialog asking which category to transfer the transactions and balance to

In our example, we want to use Food which will take over from Foods once you are happy with your selection, click Delete

The Confirm Delete dialog with Food selected as the category to transfer to

You can see in the budget that our categories have now been successfully merged and the positive balance moved to the new category.

The budget after the merge, with Foods gone and its budget and balance added to Food

Managing Categories​

Category groups can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on the arrow to the left of the Category group name. All category groups can be expanded or collapsed at once by using the three-dot menu at the top of the category list.

Categories that are not currently needed can be hidden by using the down arrow by each category name. An example is budgeting savings for a large cost (e.g. washing machine). After the purchase is made, the category can be hidden. Hidden categories still impact your budget. When needed, hidden categories can be viewed by clicking on the three dots at the top of the category list.

The category menu for Washing machine with Hide highlighted The menu at the top of the category list with Toggle hidden categories highlighted

Hidden categories, when shown, are displayed in a lower-contrast color. If you find that you now require a category that you have previously hidden, you can unhide it by using the down arrow next to the category name.

The hidden Washing machine category shown in a lower-contrast color

Category Notes​

It is possible to add notes to Categories. To do this, hover over the category that you would like to add a note to. A paper icon will appear.

Hovering over the Food category shows the paper icon

Click the paper icon and type in your note.

Typing a note for the Food category

Notes support Markdown syntax for formatted notes.

Viewing Category Notes​

Once a Category has been given a note it is possible to view it in one of two ways.

  1. Hover over the paper icon on the category and the note contents will appear for you to view.

    The formatted note shown when hovering over the paper icon

  2. Click the paper icon. This will open the edit box where you can see the note content and also edit the note, should you wish.

    The note edit box showing the Markdown text of the note