Categories and Payees
Categories and payees are the organizational backbone of your financial data. Categories classify what the money was for, while payees track who the money went to or came from.
Categories are used to classify transactions by purpose (e.g., "Groceries," "Rent," "Salary"). They form a hierarchical tree structure with parent and child categories.
Categories support parent-child relationships for detailed tracking:
Food & Dining (parent)
|- Groceries (child)
|- Restaurants (child)
|- Coffee Shops (child)
Housing (parent)
|- Rent (child)
|- Utilities (child)
|- Maintenance (child)
When viewing reports, you can see totals at the parent level (all "Food & Dining") or drill down to individual children (just "Groceries").
Navigate to Tools > Categories to access the category management page.
- Click Add Category
- Enter the category details:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Category name (e.g., "Groceries") |
| Parent | Optional parent category for nesting |
| Type | Income or Expense |
| Colour | Visual colour for reports and charts |
- Click Save
Click the edit button next to any category to modify its name, parent, type, or colour.
Categories can only be deleted if no transactions reference them. If transactions use the category, you must reassign them first or choose to merge the category into another one.
Each category is marked as either Income or Expense:
- Income categories -- Salary, freelance income, investment returns, etc.
- Expense categories -- Groceries, rent, utilities, entertainment, etc.
This classification determines how transactions are counted in reports (income vs. expenses charts).
Monize includes a set of default system categories that cannot be deleted. These provide a starting point and cover common financial categories. You can rename them or add child categories to customize them for your needs.
Payees represent the people, businesses, or entities you transact with. Every transaction can optionally be assigned a payee.
Navigate to Tools > Payees to access the payee management page.
- Click Add Payee
- Enter the payee details:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Payee name (e.g., "Amazon", "City Hydro") |
| Default Category | Auto-assigned category for new transactions with this payee |
| Notes | Optional notes about the payee |
- Click Save
Payees can also be created inline when creating a transaction -- if you type a name that does not exist, you can create it on the fly.
Click the edit button next to any payee to modify its name, default category, or notes.
If you have duplicate payees (e.g., "Amazon" and "Amazon.com"), you can merge them by renaming one to match the other. All transactions will be reassigned to the surviving payee.
Payees can be deleted. Transactions that referenced the deleted payee will have their payee field cleared.
One of the most powerful features of payees is the default category. When you assign a default category to a payee:
- The next time you create a transaction for that payee, the category is automatically filled in
- This saves time and ensures consistent categorization
- You can always override the default for individual transactions
For example, if you set "Loblaws" with a default category of "Groceries," every new transaction to Loblaws will automatically be categorized as Groceries.
When typing a payee name in the transaction form, Monize provides auto-complete suggestions based on:
- Existing payees matching your typed text
- Most frequently used payees appearing first
- Recently used payees given priority
This makes data entry faster and more consistent.
The payee system tracks usage statistics to improve the auto-complete experience:
- Most Used -- Payees with the highest transaction count appear first in suggestions
- Recently Used -- Payees from recent transactions are prioritized for quick access
These statistics are computed efficiently using a single database query that includes the default category information.