How categories work

Categories are how keel classifies every transaction — the foundation for your budgets, reports and coaching. keel ships with a focused set of system categories that cover the vast majority of UK household spending, plus the ability to add your own.

The design choice is simplicity over granularity: a short list you can actually scan beats fifty categories you'll never use.

How it works

Core categories (always on)

Category	Fixed or variable	Examples
Housing & Utilities	Fixed	Rent, mortgage, council tax, energy, water
Groceries	Variable	Tesco, Sainsbury's, Aldi, Ocado
Eating Out & Takeaway	Variable	Restaurants, Deliveroo, Just Eat
Transport	Fixed	Train tickets, fuel, car insurance, TfL
Travel	Variable	Flights, hotels, Airbnb
Health & Fitness	Variable	Gym, pharmacy, dentist
Personal Care	Variable	Haircuts, skincare
Shopping & Clothing	Variable	Amazon, ASOS, high street
Entertainment	Variable	Netflix, Spotify, cinema, gaming
Home & Garden	Variable	B&Q, furniture, garden centre
Gifts & Charity	Variable	Donations, presents
Bank Fees & Charges	Fixed	Account fees, foreign transaction fees, late payment fees
Interest & Finance Charges	Fixed	Credit card interest, loan interest, overdraft fees
Other	Variable	Catch-all — should stay under 5% of your transactions

The fixed/variable split drives the spending breakdown on your dashboard: fixed costs are commitments, variable costs are where the levers are.

Lifestyle categories (off by default)

Three categories only appear if they're relevant to your household, toggled by onboarding questions and changeable any time in Settings:

Category	Toggle question
Childcare & Children's Education	"Do you have children?"
Learning & Development	"Are you studying or doing courses?"
Pets	"Do you have pets?"

Special categories

A few categories are assigned automatically rather than picked: Income (money in, confirmed with an income type), Savings & Investments (ISA, pension and savings transfers), Internal Transfer, and Debt Repayments. See Transaction types explained.

Category descriptions

Most categories carry a short plain-language description answering "what exactly goes here?" — visible in category pickers, budget rows and the dashboard breakdown. Searching in any picker matches both the name and the description, so typing "supermarkets" finds Groceries.

Custom categories

You can create your own categories (such as "Wedding" or "Home Renovation") with a name, an optional budget group (defaults to Other), an icon chosen from keel's curated picker so custom categories match the look of the built-in set, an optional description, and 2–3 example merchants. The examples teach the AI to categorise matching transactions correctly — and keel scans your existing transactions for matches and lets you review them.

Custom categories can be deleted; if one has transactions, you choose where to move them first.

Managing categories in Settings

Settings → Categories has three parts: the lifestyle toggles at the top, all categories organised by budget group (each row shows the name, description, transaction count, rule count and an on/off toggle), and custom category creation.

Turning a category off hides it from AI categorisation, budgets and pickers. Existing transactions keep their category — nothing is deleted, and you can turn it back on any time. "Other" can't be turned off because it's the safety net for anything that doesn't fit elsewhere.

Once you have 500+ transactions, keel may suggest simplifying: if 3 or more categories have never been used, one tap turns them off to streamline your budget screen.

The category detail screen

Every category is a drill-down destination — tap a category row anywhere in the app (reports, budgets, dashboard) to open it. The screen answers "is this category a problem, and what's driving it?" — see Category pages for the full tour. In brief:

1. Hero — the month's total, your 3-month average, and a sentence explaining what the number means, adapted to where you arrived from.
2. Merchant breakdown — top merchants with this month's spend, 3-month average and change. When two or more merchants drove a meaningful increase, keel names them: "3 merchants drove this month's increase: Costa +£42, Pret +£28, Starbucks +£18." First-time merchants get a NEW pill.
3. 6-month trend chart — with a trend label like "Up 34% over 6 months". A genuine £0-spend month sits at the bottom of the chart; months where keel has no imported data show as a gap with an amber dot at the last fully-covered month, so missing data never reads as "spent nothing".
4. Budget pacing — a progress bar and daily remaining allowance if a budget exists, or one-tap budget creation pre-filled with your 3-month average if not.
5. Recent transactions — the latest 10 in the category, with a link to see all.

Comparisons use your 3-month rolling average rather than just last month — a more stable baseline. Arrows in the header let you step back through previous months.

Good to know

• For Interest & Finance Charges and Bank Fees & Charges, the merchant breakdown is split per account instead of per merchant. Interest isn't a shop you pay — it's a fact about an account — so you see "Interest Charge — Amex Platinum" rather than one misleading combined line, and tapping a row opens that account's page.
• When a lifestyle category is disabled, its transactions route to the nearest core alternative (pet shop spending goes to Shopping & Clothing if Pets is off).
• If "Other" is collecting too many transactions, coaching will flag it — usually a sign that a custom category would help.

FAQ

Can I rename categories? Custom categories, yes. System categories, no.

Does "Childcare & Children's Education" cover school fees? Yes — nursery, childminder, private school fees, after-school clubs and children's activities all belong there.

What's the difference between Childcare and Learning & Development? Childcare covers spending on your children. Learning & Development covers courses and qualifications for yourself.

Where do driving lessons go? Learning & Development — you're learning a skill, not commuting.

Do home repairs like plumbers go in Home & Garden? Yes. Furniture, appliances, DIY and home repair services all count as "what you spent on your home".

What happens when I turn off a category? It disappears from budgets, AI suggestions and pickers. Existing transactions keep their category. Nothing is deleted, and you can turn it back on any time.

Can I turn off "Other"? No — it's the safety net for transactions that don't match anything else.

Why does my trend chart have a gap in the middle? A gap means keel has no imported data for those months — usually because an account hasn't been imported through that period. A measured £0 sits at the bottom of the chart instead.

Why don't I see the "Simplify" suggestion? It only appears after 500+ transactions. Before that, empty categories just mean keel hasn't seen enough of your spending yet.