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Categories 🏷️

Categories allow you to classify your transactions, making it easier to analyze where your money is going and where it comes from.

Overview

Categories are labels you assign to your transactions. They are essential for:

  • Understanding your spending patterns
  • Generating meaningful reports
  • Identifying savings opportunities
  • Organizing your finances

Default Categories

Valt comes with pre-configured categories to get you started quickly:

Expenses

  • Food
  • Housing
  • Transportation
  • Health
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Clothing
  • Services

Income

  • Salary
  • Freelance
  • Investments
  • Other

You can use these categories or customize them according to your needs.

Managing Categories

Accessing the Manager

  1. Click the settings menu
  2. Select Manage Categories
  3. The categories panel will open

Creating a New Category

  1. Click the + button or New Category
  2. Fill in:
Field Description
Name Category name (e.g., "Groceries")
Icon Visual icon
Color Identification color
  1. Click Save

Editing a Category

  1. In the category list, click the desired category
  2. Click the edit icon
  3. Modify the fields
  4. Click Save

Deleting a Category

Attention

Valt does not allow deleting categories already used in any transaction.

  1. Click the category
  2. Click Delete
  3. Confirm the deletion

Subcategories 📁

Valt supports hierarchical categories, meaning categories within categories.

To create a subcategory, simply drag the child subcategory into a parent category.

Hierarchy Example

Food
├── Groceries
├── Restaurants
├── Delivery
└── Bakery

Transportation
├── Gas
├── Uber/Lyft
├── Public Transit
└── Car Maintenance

Choosing Icons

Each category can have an associated icon:

  1. When creating/editing a category, click the Icon field
  2. An icon library will be displayed
  3. Use search to find icons (e.g., "food", "car", "home")
  4. Click the desired icon

Icon Tips

  • Use intuitive icons that represent the category
  • Maintain visual consistency
  • Icons make quick identification easier in lists

Category Colors

Colors help with visual identification:

  1. Click the Color field
  2. Select a color from the palette

Best Practices ✨

Don't create too many categories. Too many categories make analysis difficult. A structure of 8-12 main categories is sufficient for most people.

Example of a balanced structure:

Income
├── Salary
├── Freelance
├── Investments
└── Other Income

Expenses
├── Housing
├── Food
├── Transportation
├── Health
├── Entertainment
├── Education
└── Other

Transfers
└── Between Accounts

Consistent Categorization

  • Define clear rules for each category
  • Example: "Food" is for consumed food, "Groceries" can include cleaning supplies
  • Follow your own rules consistently

Use in Reports 📊

Categories are fundamental for reports:

Spending by Category

The Spending by Category report shows: - How much you spent in each category - Percentage of total - Comparison between periods

Analysis

With good categorization, you can answer:

  • "How much do I spend on food per month?"
  • "Have my transportation expenses increased?"
  • "Which category represents the largest part of my expenses?"

Changing Category of Multiple Transactions

If you need to recategorize several transactions:

  1. Select multiple transactions in the transaction list by holding Shift or Ctrl
  2. Open the Edit All menu
  3. Check the option to change the category and choose the new category

This is useful when: - You reorganized your categories - You realized you categorized incorrectly - You want to merge several categories

Next Steps