Using the workbook
Transactions & auto-categorization
Recording income and expenses in the Transactions tab or the sidebar, what fills in by itself, and how auto-categorization learns from you.
On this page
The 💰 Transactions tab is your list of income and expenses. Every other part of the workbook — balances, budgets, loans, the Dashboard — is calculated from it.
You can add a transaction from the sidebar, or type it straight into the sheet. Both work the same way.
| Column | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Date | The date of the transaction. |
| Description | What it was for, for example Grocery run. Auto-categorization reads this. |
| Amount | The amount, as a positive number. Whether it is money in or out comes from the sub-category, not from a minus sign. |
| Sub-category | Choose from the dropdown, for example Groceries. |
| Category (auto) | Filled in for you from the sub-category. |
| Transaction Type (auto) | Filled in for you from the sub-category: Income or Expense. |
| Account | The account the money came from or went to. Choose from the dropdown. |
| Owner | The household member it belongs to. Choose from the dropdown. |
| Notes | Optional — any extra detail. |
| Recurring (auto) | Yes for transactions added by a recurring rule, otherwise No. |
Columns marked (auto) and ↻ filled automatically are filled in by MonetrixOS. Don't type in them.
An Income transaction adds to the account's balance; an Expense takes it away. See Accounts.
- In the sidebar, select Ledger at the bottom. The Transactions screen opens, and so does the Transactions tab.
- Select + Add transaction. (On the Home screen, Add transaction does the same.)
- Fill in Date, Description, Amount (shown with your currency code, for example Amount (USD)), Sub-category, Account, Owner and, if you like, Notes.
- Check the Auto-fill preview: it shows the category and type the sub-category will give.
- Select Save.
The transaction is added to the sheet and balances are recalculated. If something is missing or wrong, the form tells you — for example Amount must be a positive number. or Invalid Sub-category selection.
You can type or paste rows straight into the Transactions tab. As soon as you edit a row, MonetrixOS fills in the rest:
- When you enter a Sub-category, Category (auto) and Transaction Type (auto) are filled in. If the sub-category doesn't exist in your list, both show ⚠️ No Match — choose one from the dropdown instead.
- When you enter a Description and leave Sub-category empty, MonetrixOS tries to pick the sub-category for you (see below).
- An empty Account is set to your default account, an empty Owner to
Me, and Recurring (auto) toNo.
This also works when you paste several rows at once.
When you type a description without a sub-category, MonetrixOS looks for a match in two places, in this order:
- Your category keywords. Each sub-category has a list of keywords. If one of them appears anywhere in the description, that sub-category is used. For example, the starting list has the keyword
netflixon theStreaming Videosub-category, so the descriptionNetflix Marchis categorised asStreaming Video. Upper and lower case don't matter. - What you've done before. If no keyword matches, MonetrixOS learns from your own transactions: when you've given a word the same sub-category at least twice — say,
bakery→Groceries— it suggests that sub-category the next time the word appears. It only learns whole words, ignores very common words, and skips a word you've used with different sub-categories.
Auto-categorization never overwrites a sub-category you chose yourself. If it guesses wrong, just pick the right sub-category from the dropdown — that also teaches it for next time.
Categories are managed in the sidebar: select More, then Categories.
- Each entry is a Sub-category with a Parent category, a Type (Income or Expense) and Keywords (comma-separated).
- Select + Create category to add one, or Edit to change one. For a new parent category, choose ➕ New parent category… and type its name.
- Select Save category.
The categories you set up here fill the Sub-category dropdowns in the Transactions, Budgeting and Recurrings tabs.
- Moving money between your own accounts (for example, from checking to savings) is not income or expense. Record it on the Movements tab.
- A loan repayment is an expense whose description contains the loan's code. See Loans.
- Saving toward a goal is a transfer into a savings account whose description contains the goal's code. See Savings & Goals.