Editing & deleting categories
You can use the Categories page to adjust the settings of each of your categories 🔧
Under Edit category details you can edit the name or color for a category 🎨, change the category type, or create parent and subcategories.
Under Edit category options you can change a category to a transfer category, or, a scheduled bill or income category. If you're a safe balance user, you can also choose to include or exclude a category here.
In this user guide
In this user guide
Steps to edit category details
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- Head to the Categories page ( Manage > Categories)
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Hover your mouse over the category you want to edit, click on the
three-dot menu and select
Edit
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Here you have the freedom to edit and personalize many aspects of each of your categories, such as name and category color. Editing a category can be done from a category's edit window:
Edit a category name
Make your category name as specific, original or unique as you like!
Any edits to a category name will automatically update any related budgets or category rules.Edit the color of a category
Choose a color for each of your categories 🎨 These colors will be reflected on your Calendar page, Budget page and other graphs and reports such as the Earning and Spending graph on the Dashboard.
Create sub-categories by nesting under parent categories
If you are creating a sub-category, you can nest it under a parent category by selecting a category from the drop-down menu - Parent category. Learn more about sub-categories and nesting here: Sub-categories and nesting
Set the category type
Set the category type so that PocketSmith knows whether to include transactions within the category in the income or expense sections of any reports. Learn more here: Category types in PocketSmith
Steps to edit category options
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Head to the Categories page (Manage > Categories)
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Hover your mouse over the category you want to edit, click on the
three-dot menu and select
Edit
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To edit the more advanced category options - choose
Category options from the left menu panel.
From the category options screen, you can change to a bill or scheduled income category, mark as a transfer category, and include in Safe Balance (beta feature):
Change a category to a bill or scheduled income category
Change your category to a bill or scheduled income category if you would like the category's budget to reflect that the full amount is usually paid or received in one transaction, rather than in multiple transactions over a period of time. Learn more here: The difference between bill or scheduled income budgets and regular repeating budgets
Include or exclude a category from Safe Balance calculations (Beta feature)
If you're a beta tester and have safe balance enabled on an account you can choose to include/exclude categories for safe balance calculations. Find out more about safe balance here: Safe Balance beta
Change a category to a transfer category
Transfer categories have transactions assigned to them that have been
transferred between your accounts. Change your category to a transfer category so that its transactions are displayed accurately in PocketSmith. Learn more here: Setting up transfer categories in PocketSmith
Edit settings for newly created categories
When creating a new category via the Transactions page, the Categorize items page, or via a new filter or budget, you can edit the settings for this category by clicking on the 'New category' pop-up that shows in the bottom left corner.
Just click on Edit category settings to be taken directly to the category settings.
If you'd prefer to do this later, just click Not now. You can always edit your categories from the Categories page (Manage > Categories) instead.
For more detail on editing category settings please see: Editing & deleting categories
Deleting or merging a category
You can delete a category and assign all of its associated transactions and budgets to another category.
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- Head to the Categories page ( Manage > Categories)
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Hover your mouse over the category you want to delete, click on the
three-dot menu and select
Delete
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You can then choose to re-assign all the transactions and budgets in this category to a new category before deleting. If you'd like to do this, select a new category from the
drop-down
menu, then click
Delete category
Warning
If you choose not to re-assign the transactions and budgets from a deleted category to a new one, all its transactions will become uncategorized and the budgets will be deleted.
Bulk deleting categories
If you have a whole stack of categories that you don't want, you can delete them in bulk on the Categories page.
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Head to the Categories page (Manage > Categories)
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- Select the checkbox beside the category that you would like to delete
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- Click Delete from the toolbar and then click YES.
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Warning
Choosing this option means that these categories and all of their budgets will be removed. All transactions assigned to these categories will be uncategorized
Change the category order
You may want to adjust the order of your categories so that they are displayed differently in drop-down menus and in some reports, such as the Cashflows and Income & Expense statements. You can change the category order by dragging and dropping categories following the steps below.
Changing the category order of the Categories page
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- Head to the Categories page ( Manage > Categories)
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Locate the category you want to move and click and hold on its drag handle
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Move the category to the correct position and unclick, to change the order
Category mapping
PocketSmith keeps track of any category deletions or name changes you make. This means that any newly imported transactions that have categories from a bank feed or bank file are mapped to the new category (if the name is changed) or are uncategorized (if the category has been deleted).
Change the category name
Example:
🎉 Jeffrey decided to change the name of his category called Hobbies. He changed it to Hobbies & fun. Now, any new transaction imported with the Hobbies category via automatic categorization from the bank feed, or with a category assigned to it in a bank file import, will be assigned to the category Hobbies & fun.
Delete the category
Example:
🏠 Jeffrey also decided to delete his category called Household Goods. He wanted to categorize household goods into more specific categories, and no longer has a need for the category Household Goods. Now, any transaction imported with the category Household Goods via automatic categorization from the bank feed, or with a category assigned to it in a bank file import, will be uncategorized.
Viewing or removing category mapping
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- Head to Manage > Category Rules, Saved Searches and Filters
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- Select Category mapping from the left menu
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- To remove an instance of category mapping, navigate to the category mapping you'd like to remove, then select the three-dot menu > Delete
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