✅ Custom Category Creation

You can add “:coffee:️ Coffee” as a note (no emoji required), categorise it as Eating Out, and search for “:coffee:️ Coffee“ using Monzo’s great search and filtering. That way you can easily see how much you’re spending on coffee for the week, month, or whatever.

Problem is, I have to manually enter that for every entry. Then search the keyword and manually tot up the amount for the given period of interest.

True, but at least there’s a category for that (Eating Out). There isn’t even a category for things we buy for other people (rounds, meals on dates, gifts in general).

For things like coffee, beer, snacks and other things like that, the Eating Out category might be sufficient, with some kind of hash tagging system, like you suggest. But even with the Notes function, we don’t have a category for gifts and rounds and other things we buy for other people, so I’d suggest that’s more pressing (considering this topic adds new categories but not enough for many of us, but hash tagging would be a brand new feature).

For things like coffee, beer, snacks etc., I just add a text replacement on the iOS keyboard, so I can add those notes much faster.

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Although the manual entry can be a chore, it soon becomes habit.

You don’t have to tot it up, it sums and averages at the bottom of the screen:

image

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True, although those purchases ar arguably (perhaps not though) less frequent and could be categorised as ‘general’ or ‘shopping’. I also imagine it would be harder for Monzo to automatically categorise, whereas expenditure on coffee is possibly more clear cut (although I grant you, some people might buy their lunch at Costa or coffee at Pret).

Either way, I think custom categories would suit the widest range of people.

Thanks Toby, didn’t realise you could put the ‘this month’ rule in.

Custom categories is a commonly requested feature and we try to channel the replies into a single thread as per below…

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You like pizza then?

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The below posts were moved here from this topic -

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Well said @Rob3 you’re absolutely right IMO.

That was along same lines I was going with this, basic options sit on a main selection menu (as they do now), nice and clean for the user who wants the simple easy experience, then you just begin typing and creating the categories you may want if you want to go further…

Ironically even as I ask for this I think I would personally only have a very few ‘extra’ categories, but I’m sure they’d be pretty unique to me - tracking particular work expense types, or money spent decorating from my decorating pot for example in one month, that sort of thing,

Keeping it nice and clean via an interface that only presents the top 10 you recently use, maintains that nice clean look Monzo do right to try and protect as far as possible, whilst indulging users who love to really begin to manage their spending.

It’s a nice little tension Monzo really have to constantly manage and balance and I think it’s fascinating if they nail it.

Exactly!! And this is what makes me think Monzo’s response isn’t very transparent.

Investment! That’s really important. General or Expenses doesn’t do.

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I’m a firm believer in future proofing where possible and using categories up until relatively recently has been a great way to manage and divide money into groups. What happens when the transaction fits into multiple categories? I think many other tech savvy firms have realised that using tags (with or without#) allows powerful search features to work… and here’s the future bit, by doing this it can simplify the integration of Monzo with other finance apps moving forward. Lots of detail to flesh out, but you get the gist. Use tags with or instead of categories. They must be used consistently, spelled correctly etc (master repository of validated tag words that is checked before you add??). Powerful google like search over years of finances would be awesome imho. Great work Monzo!!

Hey! Custom categories aren’t something we’re planning on introducing any time soon.

Whilst it’s over two years old - Hugo’s explanation of the logic behind this decision still holds true

https://community.monzo.com/t/custom-categories-1/649/2?u=naji

There are plans to add two additional categories in the next month or two though :wink:

Thanks, are you able to advise about what they might be?

Not yet I’m afraid!

Why?

567890

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere (I assume it must have been, but I just can’t seem to find it…)

Might it be possible to have customisable (or creatable) categories for spending, beyond Transport, Cash, Groceries etc.? I, for one, tend to shovel money out of my Monzo account into a savings account with another bank, since my salary (now) gets paid into my Monzo account. But there isn’t really a good way of categorising this. I was wondering whether there might be a possibility of having categories that can be created – or having the ability to change existing categories. Apologies if this has already been covered…

SW

Thanks for this. In that case, might I just take this opportunity to suggest that a “savings” category would be particualrly helpful to me? Even if it isn’t ultimately something that Monzo decides to go for, it’s nice to feel like I’m being heard, so thanks for taking the time to respond, anyway.

SW

@SWPhilosophy no problem! And thanks for your suggestion - I will update this thread once we can share details :slightly_smiling_face: The new categories are part of a bigger overhaul of the Spending tab and should offer a more holistic overview of your account activity, greater control and visibility.

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I am new to Monzo community, so apologies if I am getting it wrong. I would like to be able to add more spending categories. Maybe there is already a way, but I haven’t spotted it?

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