Create, edit or delete Categories

Income Categories track where your money is coming from.

Expense Categories track where your money is going.
 

To access your categories, select Tools > Categories.

You'll then see a window (shown below) where all categories in your data file will be displayed.
 

The categories are ordered alphabetically.
All Expense categories are listed first, then Income categories below.

Create Categories -

From the Categories window (shown above), select “New” to create a new category.

You can then choose the category type, either Income or Expense.

In the next window, you can input the category details.
You must enter a category name, specify the currency and set the parent category.

Parent/Child Categories -

In Moneydance, categories and subcategories are referred to as Parent and Child categories.

For example, you may have a Parent category called "Bills".
This Parent category can have Child categories called "Gas", "Rent", "Phone" etc.

The parent category must always be the same category 'type' - for example, an Expense category cannot be the parent of an Income category.

You'll find more information about Parent and Child categories within this article.
 

Create a Category when entering transactions -

You can also easily create categories when entering a transaction.

To do this, type the name of the new category into the Category field.
You'll then be offered the ability to create a new category.

In the screenshot below, we've typed "Healthcare" into the Category field of the transaction, and this category doesn't already exist in the data file.

Select the “Create Category…” item, and you will be prompted to specify if the new category will be an income or expense category. Then you will see the category creation window as above.

Edit Categories -

To edit a category, select Tools > Categories.
Then highlight the relevant category and select “Edit”.

This will open a window displaying the category details (as displayed in the screenshot below), and you can amend the fields as required.

When you're done, press OK and the changes will be applied.

Closing Categories -

If you have categories that you no longer need or use - you can mark them as “Inactive”.
This will prevent the categories from displaying in drop-down lists in your account registers.

Inactive categories are still accessible from reports and can be unmarked as Inactive (i.e., returned to active use) at any time.

To make this change, select Tools > Categories.
Highlight the relevant category and select “Edit”.
Then enable the“Inactive” box, and press OK.
 

Delete Categories -

To delete a category, select Tools > Categories.
Then highlight the relevant category and select “Delete”.

Deleting a category will also delete all transactions associated with the category.
Any subcategories will also be removed.

If the category has transactions assigned, you'll have to confirm the deletion by typing 'yes' into the delete window.