Category Conversation

[buzzmaster1]

I would like to start a discussion regarding Categories, Groups, Tags, Notes, and SubCategories. I am surprised this does not come up more often. Let me start by describing my current setup and rationale. I would love to hear how others have set up their sheets.

Groups - I have the following groups: Living Expenses, Discretionary, Income, Transfers.

I recognize that there is overlap with “TYPE” and not sure how to use that.

Tags - I use this for one-off grouping like subscription rebates from credit cards

Notes - I use this for my travel to look at the cost of each trip broken down by lodging, transportation, food, etc

SubCategories - This is most important. I have Home as a category and then subcategories are HOA, property taxes, Insurance, repairs, utilities. Health is a category with Medical, dental, therapy, prescriptions as subcategories. Auto is a category with Gas, Insurance, repairs as subcategories. Income is a category with dividends, interest, pension, investments as subcategories. And so on. So for me subcategories are critical to my view of cashflow, income and spending.

Lately, there are more features from Tiller that would only be useful if you have categories but no subcategories. So I am now wondering what the rest of you do and if there is another way I can accomplish what I need without using subcategories. Also, I have my own tab which shows all of my data by month for the current year and year by year for past years. I rarely look at other tabs.

So really, I want to see how others are looking at their finances to see if it may be time to overhaul my sheet. I am happy to share more details as well,

Thanks, Ken

[jpfieber]

I wish ‘subcategories’ was something that was supported in Tiller, it would make it easier/cleaner to organize things. To make things work better with the way Tiller is designed, I utilize groups more than you do, and avoid ‘subcategories’ since most templates don’t know what that is. Here’s what my Type/Group/Categories look like:

Category	Group	Type
Groceries	01-Groceries	Expense
AllPets	02-Pets	Expense
Birds	02-Pets	Expense
Cats	02-Pets	Expense
Dogs	02-Pets	Expense
Reptiles	02-Pets	Expense
Entertainment	03-Discretionary	Expense
GiftCharity	03-Discretionary	Expense
Household	03-Discretionary	Expense
Personal-Her	03-Discretionary	Expense
Personal-Him	03-Discretionary	Expense
Personal-Shared	03-Discretionary	Expense
Restaurants	03-Discretionary	Expense
Supplies	03-Discretionary	Expense
Wildlife	03-Discretionary	Expense
Dental	04-Health	Expense
Fitness	04-Health	Expense
HealthInsurance	04-Health	Expense
LifeInsurance	04-Health	Expense
Medical	04-Health	Expense
Mental	04-Health	Expense
Pharmacy	04-Health	Expense
Supplements	04-Health	Expense
Vision	04-Health	Expense
Wellness	04-Health	Expense
Electricity	05-Utilities	Expense
Garbage	05-Utilities	Expense
Internet	05-Utilities	Expense
Internet/Service	05-Utilities	Expense
Internet/Domains	05-Utilities	Expense
NaturalGas	05-Utilities	Expense
Phone	05-Utilities	Expense
Water	05-Utilities	Expense
Airfair	06-Transportation	Expense
Auto	06-Transportation	Expense
Auto/Fuel	06-Transportation	Expense
Auto/Insurance	06-Transportation	Expense
Auto/Maintenance	06-Transportation	Expense
GettingAround	06-Transportation	Expense
HomeGeneral	07-Home	Expense
HomeImprovements	07-Home	Expense
HomeInsurance	07-Home	Expense
HomeServices	07-Home	Expense
LawnGarden	07-Home	Expense
PropertyTax	07-Home	Expense
401k	08-Retirement	Expense
403b	08-Retirement	Expense
Medicare	08-Retirement	Expense
Pension	08-Retirement	Expense
SocialSecurity	08-Retirement	Expense
FederalTax	09-Taxes	Expense
MiscTax	09-Taxes	Expense
StateTax	09-Taxes	Expense
Boat	10-Special	Expense
Workshop	10-Special	Expense
Fees	99-Misc Expense	Expense
Fraud	99-Misc Expense	Expense
ActiveIncome	Earned	Income
Business/Sales	Earned	Income
Business/DogWatching	Earned	Income
Consulting/XYZinc	Earned	Income
Salary/Contoso	Earned	Income
Salary/ACME	Earned	Income
Cashback	Unearned	Income
Dividends	Unearned	Income
Interest	Unearned	Income
PassiveIncome	Unearned	Income
Windfall/JohnSmith	Unearned	Income
Transfer In	Transfer	Transfer
Transfer Out	Transfer	Transfer

I then use Tags if something needs to be broken down further (eg. in the Dogs category, a tag for each dog or in the Auto Category a tag for each car). I use Notes for just a few select things where a template knows to look there for extra information.

[Rebecca.S]

I use 7 broad groups and 30 fairly broad categories that I “subcategorize” with just over 40 tags. Although this approach works well for me, I’d love to see subcategories supported.

[djsanch12]

Thanks for starting this discussion @buzzmaster1. i too have a set up similar to @jpfieber. Because i like the data i break things down in more granularity through Category, Group. I use tags for very specific things (like to break down Travel, etc). Here is my list… Likely way too many categories (this is where subcategories could help) but it works for me to give me a snap shot of my monthly activity.

Category	Group	Type
New Mexico Animal Humane	Charity	Expense
St. Mary’s Church	Charity	Expense
Coffee Shops	Discretionary	Expense
Electronics	Discretionary	Expense
Entertainment	Discretionary	Expense
Gifts	Discretionary	Expense
Gifts: XXXX	Beneficiary	Expense
Gifts: XXXX	Beneficiary	Expense
Home Internet	Discretionary	Expense
Membership	Discretionary	Expense
Parking & Tolls	Discretionary	Expense
Personal	Discretionary	Expense
Postage & Shipping	Discretionary	Expense
Restaurants	Discretionary	Expense
Shopping	Discretionary	Expense
Subscriptions	Discretionary	Expense
Taxi & Ride Shares	Discretionary	Expense
Air/Rail/Car Travel	Travel	Expense
Food & Restaurants	Travel	Expense
Rental Car & Taxi	Travel	Expense
Hotel/Air BNB	Travel	Expense
Travel Misc	Travel	Expense
Credit Card Interest	Financial	Expense
Financial & Legal Services	Financial	Expense
Cash Back	Non-Taxable	Income
Foreign Tax	Financial	Expense
State Tax	Financial	Expense
Federal Tax	Financial	Expense
Mortgage Received	Hide	Transfer
Property Tax Recieved	Hide	Transfer
Investment Purchase	Hide	Equity
Investment Gain/Loss	Hide	Equity
Investment: Reinvestment Dividends	Hide	Transfer
Investment Balance	Hide	Equity
Investment Sell	Hide	Equity
Investment Cash Flow	Hide	Equity
Auto Gas	Living	Expense
Auto Insurance	Living	Expense
Auto Maintenance & Registration	Living	Expense
Cell Phone	Living	Expense
Electricity	Living	Expense
Groceries	Living	Expense
Prescriptions	Health	Expense
Medical, Dental, Eye Care	Health	Expense
Labs	Health	Expense
Contacts, Eyeglasses	Health	Expense
Health Insurance	Health	Expense
Home Gas	Living	Expense
Home Insurance	Living	Expense
Home Maintenance & Repair	Living	Expense
Montefino HOA	Living	Expense
Mortgage	Living	Expense
Ocotillo HOA	Living	Expense
Pets	Living	Expense
Property Tax	Living	Expense
Water	Living	Expense
Interest (Tax Deferred)	Tax Deferred	Income
Investment: Dividends (Tax Def)	Tax Deferred	Income
Investment: Dividends (Health)	Tax Deferred	Income
Investment: Long Term CG (Tax Def)	Tax Deferred	Income
Investment: Short Term CG (Tax Def)	Tax Deferred	Income
Interest	Taxable	Income
Investment: Dividends	Taxable	Income
Investment: Income	Taxable	Income
Investment: Long Term CG	Taxable	Income
Investment: Short Term CG	Taxable	Income
Paycheck	Taxable	Income
Credit Card Payment	Transfer	Transfer
Transfer	Transfer In or Out	Transfer
Delete	Redemption	Transfer

[Clint.C]

I use the subcategory technique mentioned in the following help guide Can I use subcategories with Tiller spreadsheets?

“If you’re used to a Category > Subcategory structure think about Groups as the bigger bucket (what you used to call “Category”) and Categories fall into that bucket (what you used to call “Subcategory”).”

Here is a subset of my expense Categories:

[buzzmaster1]

Thanks for the comments. I see that groups can be used as a category and then category as subcategory. I prefer my system because both category and subcategory are in the transaction tab which is good for filtering and pivot tables. Also, I am not seeing reports that do much with groups. Here is my main report Column A. To the right are month by month for a selected year and then yearly totals for the previous 5 years. This and the networth reports are all i really look at.

[casilverthorn.96]

I use group as my category and category as the subcategory. The only thing I really use tags for are tracking more detailed spending in travel, but I have never used a report for category. Just filter travel and see where thing were to know how to update my budget for the next year. I guess I don’t understand how group > category > subcategory would be helpful, at least in my case. I have tried more detailed categories and I kind of hate that, its too much noise for my brain. I do have a column called group that I added to my spreadsheet, but haven’t used it. But then again, I don’t pull reports using pivot tables. I have 2 community sheets that I regularly use and one that I build that give me most of the data that I need. I do have several others that I check for various things as well.

[ctlee]

I think jpfieber has a good example of using existing categories to achieve what’s generally needs. because for better or worse what you’ve probably noticed is most of the people want/need this are generally super users. So i don’t think the development team is going to have additional subcategories as an official feature over a bunch of other stuff. what you could do is add manual categories yourself and link it to what you need it to? In a similar fashion ie for me the “amount” columns is usually not the amount so i have a net column and that’s what i have being pulled into other sheets.
so it might be you could have a manual sub-category column that gets auto-cated for what you need and you only link to that as you need it?

[buzzmaster1]

I disagree with your analysis. I think Categoryy/SubCategory would be extremely helpful for general users. jpfeiber is doing the best he can to overcome a basic conceptual limitation in Tiller. Also, I actually like Groups as a separate categorization tool. For me, it is Mandatory, Discretionary, etc. Also, since Group is located in the Category tab and not the Transaction tab, it logically should not be used as a Category field. I am wondering how those of you using Group as Category handle categorization. After reading the various comments here, I think I will make some improvements in my Category and Subcategory breakdowns. I will not be abandoning the SubCategory. Since Tiller is building more tools, I hope that they decide to support SubCategory, which seems like a universally helpful field, or better still, support custom fields in general (bigger project). In the meantime, I will build my own tools as needed. I appreciate everyone’s feedback and would love to see more implementations.

[jpfieber]

And if you build something custom, consider sharing, there’s obviously plenty of others that might find it useful as well!

[PCB]

@buzzmaster1

You probably could only add one column to your category sheet for your what you call group (discretionary, mandatory, etc).

Since you’re already using the categories on the transaction sheets (what for you is a subcategory), I feel like it’s just a nomenclature thing.

Once you add that column to the categories sheet, find whatever report you would like to use and add a layer of grouping by adding the reference to your new column in the references boxes in the hidden columns of the sheet.

Then you can slightly adjust the formulas to first group by the new column you created, then the usual group and category.

I think this could work. Do you have a template that you would want to use it with, we could give it a try.

[buzzmaster1]

Hi, I’m not sure that I understand what you’re saying. Currently, in the transaction sheet, I have category and subcategory columns. I update most of them with AutoCat or manually. I have a sheet that I created, which displays all of my spending by category as well as broken down by a subcategory on a monthly and yearly basis. In the category sheet, there was always a column named group. I don’t really use it myself, but I see that it is used in one of the canned reports, and so I filled in the group with my idea of discretionary and mandatory and so on.

So everything is working fine for me. I just think it would be nice if Tiller supported either the subcategory concept or custom columns. And as I mentioned in an earlier comment, I think it would be helpful for everybody. I just don’t think category alone is sufficient, which is supported by the various methods other people have used to get around the lack of a subcategory in transactions.

[PCB]

Is there one particular report you have in mind that you would like to use with the categories and subcategories but cannot at this time because it only supports groups and categories?

[buzzmaster1]

No, I created my own sheet which has pretty much everything I need and then for the notes report, I added subcategory support. But for things like AI Auto Cat, and all of the new AI tools they are working on, they do not work with subcategory and that is disappointing. I am wondering how those who use group as category handle autocat and the AI tools as well.

KH

[RachelB]

As someone who uses parent/child categories, I wanted to plug @alan.heatherley’s Organized Category Dropdown template. Makes manually categorizing transaction much faster!

It organizes the Category column in your Transactions sheets into a hierarchy of Groups and their Categories.

[PCB]

If the category is Auto, why do you feel like you need to add car to every category? I think I might be missing something that I could use and like.

[RachelB]

Good point! Some of the community templates only use Category and don’t show Group so I wanted to easily see the different types.

[PCB]

Oh I see! What’s the main one you’re using I’d like to try that.

[PCB]

Do you feel like you could share a copy of the sheet as a template? Others with the same subcategories issue might like it.

[buzzmaster1]

I am happy to share, but the sheet is driven by 2 pivot tables I created. One is organized by category, and the other by subcategory. I grab the monthly totals for the selected year and then the yearly totals for each year. I then populate the sheet below. I am not sure if there is an easy way to share it but it is very simple to create. Let me know how I can help.