Categorize a bank charge on your phone

Open Money on your phone. If any of your bank charges are waiting for a category, you will see Needs a category with the number waiting. Tap it.

The list is one charge at a time, oldest first. Each row shows the merchant, the date and the amount, so you can recognise a charge without opening it.

Giving a charge its category

Tap a charge and TALISK_HQ shows you what it knows: the merchant, the date, the amount, and which set of books it is saving to. If you have coded that supplier before, or if there is a standing rule for them, it offers that answer with one tap and tells you where the suggestion came from. Otherwise, use the category box: type a few letters of the name, or the first digits of the account number, and pick from the list. It is the same list you get on a computer.

Tap Save category. TALISK_HQ records the entry and moves on.

Offering the same answer to the rest

After you save, TALISK_HQ may offer to code the other charges from that supplier that still have no category. It tells you how many there are and what they add up to before you decide, because coding them records entries that are not in your books yet.

That is a second, separate tap. Saving one charge never codes the others.

If some of those charges would also pick up sales tax from the account or from what you have told TALISK_HQ about that supplier, it says how many. If some sit in a period you have already filed, it says how many of those there are too, and leaves them alone.

What is not on the list, and why

The phone shows charges that have been sitting for at least a week and are worth $25 or more. A charge from yesterday, or a small one, waits for a computer. That is the same rule TALISK_HQ uses on the Money screen when it tells you a charge needs a category, so the number on your phone and the one on your computer agree.

Some charges are on the list but marked needs a computer. Tap one and TALISK_HQ explains which it is:

• It already has a category. Changing it means undoing the entry behind it, which is a computer job.
• It is matched to a bill or an invoice, so its category comes from there.
• It is a transfer between two of your own accounts, so it takes no category.
• It is dated before your books opened, so its amount is already in your opening balances.
• It is in another currency. Coding a foreign charge is a computer job.

When your books are offline

Saving a category records an entry, so TALISK_HQ will not do it while your phone has no connection. It tells you nothing was sent and waits for you to tap again once you are back online.

When you have a lot waiting

The phone works through the fifty oldest. If you have more than that, it says so, and the rest are on Banking on a computer.