✅ Linked account categorisation

Having upgraded to Monzo Plus to get linked accounts I have now linked my Amex (and soon to include Barclays) which is really great. It would be even better if I could use the same categories set up for my main Monzo accounts to tag the transactions in these linked accounts. And cherry on top would be to incorporate that spending by category in my monthly spend reports

its all very well wanting this utopia , but, dont get me wrong, I am no computer coder , programmer …wouldn’t that require the Amex transactions having the same “code” for want of a better word, that the Monzo app recognises to enable Monzo to recognise that you bought groceries, transport , etc etc …doesnt it need Amex to tag the purchase so the code is recognised by Monzo … and then Barclays to use the same code that amex uses and in synch with Monzos code …etc etc…be great if all banks used the same code wouldn’t it , Monzo should insist on it …for our budgets to work …or is it a simpler solution that I am missing … maybe the retailers should add a code to all their products that banks can recognise ,…
maybe they do … hmmmm

This is more or less the entire purpose of aggregators like Emma, Yolt, Money Dashboard.

The big question is whether Monzo is really up for the development effort to become a competitive aggregator - very little sign of that so fa

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so any bank , credit card supplier , could do this then, does amex categorise in their app your purchases into food , fuel, etc etc or just retailer ? do they have an app ? dunno

You don’t need your bank, credit card or other institution to do it at all.

Open banking APIs pass through the transaction data to the aggregator, which then does all the categorisation.

emma has an opening to become a bank then :slight_smile:

I can see a first class aggregator and bank combo bring unstoppable, but it hasn’t happened yet, not even close!

so no bank does this then ?

at present …

Let me know if you find one!

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For me, it’s a great idea. On the list of transactions in the ‘Other Account’ section within Monzo app, be able to tap and categorise individual transactions and have them included in your budgets for that category.
This is so I can manage a single budget from Monzo although spending comes from two (or more) accounts.
Nothing required by the other banks here…

This was the whole reason I upgraded to plus, and I’m annoyed it’s not possible. I won’t be renewing my plus features unless they add this functionality.

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You upgraded to Plus to obtain a feature that has not been advertised as available? Okay.

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I do love the categorisation but I am more than a little dissappointed that I can’t apply it to my linked Joint Account. Slight saving grace is that you can split-categorise so I can (retrospectively) assign spend to the categories that were transacted in the joint account against the money transferred.

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@tbutz I presumed “linked accounts” afforded you the same ability to interact with linked accounts as regular accounts. Why should I presume differently?

Anyway, thanks for taking time out of your obviously super busy day to weigh in on the matter. You really added to the conversation.

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You did a lot of presuming but it seems zero actual checking before upgrading. Even looking at the Monzo Plus web page shows a linked account and there’s no indication that categories exist. I’m sorry that me pointing that out has upset you.

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I did too @hheather. And as a software developer myself (of many years) I don’t think it was an unreasonable assumption. If every transaction has a unique ID then it would be quite possible for the categorisation to be done at Monzo’s end rather than the originating bank.

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And as a software developer of many years you will know that Monzo will then have to create somewhere to *store* that information so it’s not lost, and provide a mechanism to record/change that information, and then make sure it’s purged should the connection be removed, and then ensure the user knows this data is being held somewhere and gives their permission and a dozen other minor things that would need to be thought about.

Just showing the data requires none of that gubbins.

Yes, but no one has to be a software developer or otherwise to suggest a feature. A feature’s merit should be based on the value it brings to the user. It’s not for us to speculate on how ‘tricky’ or ‘easy’ it is to implement. Only on whether you, as a user, would find it useful or not - that is an opinion that would bring value to the discussion.

Can see this being a really nice capability.

Got a vote from me.

I have just manually made a spreadsheet and a pivot table to do this for myself to split my credit card bill into the categories when it comes out of my account. While I like having my additional accounts visible, I would love to have them fully integrated into Monzo’s budgeting system.