Categories & Subcategories — Organization

Overview

Categories form a two-level hierarchy for classifying transactions. Every transaction belongs to a category (e.g., “Food & Dining”) and a subcategory (e.g., “Groceries” or “Restaurants”). Categories drive budgets, dashboard breakdowns, and rule engine assignments.

Page Layout

The Categories page uses a two-panel layout:

• Left panel — searchable list of all categories with subcategory counts
• Right panel — detail view for the selected category, showing its subcategories

On mobile, the layout switches between list and detail views with a back button.

Summary Cards

Three cards at the top show:

• Categories — total count
• Subcategories — total count
• Flow Distribution — visual breakdown showing how many subcategories are expense, income, and transfer type

Flow Types

Every subcategory has a flow type that determines how it’s treated in financial calculations:

Flow Type	Description	Examples
Expense	Normal spending	Groceries, Restaurants, Utilities, Rent
Income	Money coming in	Salary, Deposits, Dividends, Interest
Transfer	Internal movement	Credit Card Payment, Savings, Investments

Flow types are critical for accurate reporting — the Dashboard, Budget, and Analysis pages use them to separate spending from income and transfers. See the Flow Types reference for details.

Managing Categories

Creating a Category

1. Click + Add category at the bottom of the category list (or press N)
2. Enter a name and click Create

Renaming a Category

1. Click the category name in the right panel header
2. Edit the name in the modal and click Save

Deleting a Category

1. Click the category name to open the rename modal
2. Click the Delete button (red, left side of footer)
3. Confirm the deletion

Deleting a category removes all its subcategories. Transactions that used the deleted category become uncategorized.

Managing Subcategories

Adding a Subcategory

1. Select a category in the left panel
2. Click + Add subcategory below the subcategory list (or press N)
3. Enter a name and select a flow type
4. Click Create

Editing a Subcategory

Click any subcategory row to open the edit modal:

• Name — rename the subcategory
• Flow Type — change between Expense, Income, and Transfer

Click Save when done.

Deleting a Subcategory

1. Click the subcategory to open the edit modal
2. Click the Delete button (red, left side of footer)
3. Confirm the deletion

Transactions that used the deleted subcategory keep their parent category but lose the subcategory assignment.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
/	Focus the search box
Arrow keys	Navigate the category list
Enter / Space	Select a category
N	Add a new category or subcategory
E	Rename the selected category

Default Categories

On first launch, Acclo IQ seeds your database with a comprehensive set of default categories and subcategories covering common spending, income, and transfer types. You can rename, delete, or add to these at any time.

Impact on Other Features

Changing categories affects several other features:

• Rules — rules assign categories to transactions; deleting a category used by rules may cause future imports to become uncategorized
• Budgets — budgets are set per category or subcategory; deleting a budgeted category removes that budget target
• Dashboard & Analysis — breakdowns update immediately to reflect category changes

Related Guides

• Rules Engine — auto-assign categories via regex patterns
• Transactions — manually categorize individual transactions
• Budgets — set spending targets by category
• Flow Types — detailed reference on expense, income, and transfer types