mint.com : I wish I could avoid automatic categories
May 14, 2013 7:50 AM Subscribe
Do you use mint.com? Do you manually categorize your new transactions? How do find the new transactions that need to be categorized?
I've been using mint.com for a few weeks, as suggested by a few people in this thread.
I mostly like it. But the automatic categorization of transactions is a pain. Sometimes mint gets it right, sometimes mint gets it wrong. Having my transactions mostly right isn't so helpful. I'd be very happy if I could just turn automatic categorization off altogether, but I gather there's no way to do that.
What I'm trying to do is to manually categorize all the transactions that go in. I do this every couple of days when I have a spare minute.
The problem is that it's hard to spot the new transactions: A transaction can be "new" but can be dated in the past (eg: a credit card charge from a few days ago that just went through). And of course, the new transacation will generally be assigned a category by mint. So I have to sift though transactions, trying to guess/remember which ones need to be categorized/checked.
I'm curious if other people have this problem, and, if so, what they to do get around it?
(ps: I'm starting to use a workaround of my own, which is this: I've created a set of custom categories of my own. All my categories start with a visually easy-to-identify tag: (a). I exclusively use these custom categories. This means I can then quickly scan the transactions in mint, and if I see any transactions that don't start with the (a) tag, I know those still need to be categorized. It's a little cumbersome, and I worry there might be some problem with it I'm not foreseeing....)
I've been using mint.com for a few weeks, as suggested by a few people in this thread.
I mostly like it. But the automatic categorization of transactions is a pain. Sometimes mint gets it right, sometimes mint gets it wrong. Having my transactions mostly right isn't so helpful. I'd be very happy if I could just turn automatic categorization off altogether, but I gather there's no way to do that.
What I'm trying to do is to manually categorize all the transactions that go in. I do this every couple of days when I have a spare minute.
The problem is that it's hard to spot the new transactions: A transaction can be "new" but can be dated in the past (eg: a credit card charge from a few days ago that just went through). And of course, the new transacation will generally be assigned a category by mint. So I have to sift though transactions, trying to guess/remember which ones need to be categorized/checked.
I'm curious if other people have this problem, and, if so, what they to do get around it?
(ps: I'm starting to use a workaround of my own, which is this: I've created a set of custom categories of my own. All my categories start with a visually easy-to-identify tag: (a). I exclusively use these custom categories. This means I can then quickly scan the transactions in mint, and if I see any transactions that don't start with the (a) tag, I know those still need to be categorized. It's a little cumbersome, and I worry there might be some problem with it I'm not foreseeing....)
You haven't been using it long. The more you use it, and the more rigorous you are about categorizing your transactions, the better it will get at it. It will start to remember what kind of transactions you do more often. These days (I've been using it since about November 2011), it gets just about everything right--maybe like 1-3 transactions a week need to be fixed, and they generally come in as UNCATEGORIZED which is really easy to spot.
Just keep using it.
posted by phunniemee at 8:01 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Just keep using it.
posted by phunniemee at 8:01 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Nthing that Mint learns.
I look at my transactions weekly, beginning from the date of last week's review. Works beautifully.
posted by moira at 8:25 AM on May 14, 2013
I look at my transactions weekly, beginning from the date of last week's review. Works beautifully.
posted by moira at 8:25 AM on May 14, 2013
Agree with the above, but I also use budgets extensively, and that often leads me to seeing when something is off. I check the budgets once at the end of the month, including the "other" category.
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:53 AM on May 14, 2013
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:53 AM on May 14, 2013
When mint automatically applies a category, and you change it to the correct one, it remembers categories by vendor.
So, if you go to Target to buy groceries one week, but then go and buy yourself some clothing next week Mint doesn't know the difference. The second Target transaction would be marked as groceries.
I try to go into mint weekly, check on categorizations, maybe split some transactions (e.g. spent $10 on groceries at target, and bought a $15 shirt) and see where budgets stand, make sure bills are going to clear, etc.
Also, I do believe there is a search option of "date posted" and "date of transaction". Which might help you if you throw up a weekly "date posted" search and make sure everyones going to the right categories.
And, upon reading that link, if you're tracking taxable/reimbursable things, you don't need to change categories, you need tags! Tags are awesome. They can apply across categories. They are hierarchy independent. You can pull up a search on tags and it pulls from all categories.
Mint is far from perfect. It's been a long time since improvements were added, and since it was bought by Intuit, I doubt many improvements will be coming. I keep using it to see all my accounts, credit cards, loans, and cash in one place. The budgeting and categorization are its weakest points.
posted by fontophilic at 11:02 AM on May 14, 2013
So, if you go to Target to buy groceries one week, but then go and buy yourself some clothing next week Mint doesn't know the difference. The second Target transaction would be marked as groceries.
I try to go into mint weekly, check on categorizations, maybe split some transactions (e.g. spent $10 on groceries at target, and bought a $15 shirt) and see where budgets stand, make sure bills are going to clear, etc.
Also, I do believe there is a search option of "date posted" and "date of transaction". Which might help you if you throw up a weekly "date posted" search and make sure everyones going to the right categories.
And, upon reading that link, if you're tracking taxable/reimbursable things, you don't need to change categories, you need tags! Tags are awesome. They can apply across categories. They are hierarchy independent. You can pull up a search on tags and it pulls from all categories.
Mint is far from perfect. It's been a long time since improvements were added, and since it was bought by Intuit, I doubt many improvements will be coming. I keep using it to see all my accounts, credit cards, loans, and cash in one place. The budgeting and categorization are its weakest points.
posted by fontophilic at 11:02 AM on May 14, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks for all these comments! It's somewhat reassuring to know that the automatic categorization gets better.
Still...
So, if you go to Target to buy groceries one week, but then go and buy yourself some clothing next week Mint doesn't know the difference. The second Target transaction would be marked as groceries.
Yeah. This is one thing I worry about. I have a lot of vendors from whom I but things in multiple categories... I don't want mint assuming everything I buy from Amazon is a gift (or a book, or a computer part) just because the last thing was...
Also, I do believe there is a search option of "date posted" and "date of transaction". Which might help you if you throw up a weekly "date posted" search and make sure everyones going to the right categories.
Oh, I would really like that feature. I just spend a few minutes looking, but could not find it. If it exists and anyone could point me to it, that would go a long way toward solving my problem.
And, upon reading that link, if you're tracking taxable/reimbursable things, you don't need to change categories, you need tags!
I think I need both. For my taxes - it's not enough just to know which items are tax-deductible- I also need to know what categories they are in. (Or maybe I am missing some cool feature of the tags system....)
posted by ManInSuit at 11:20 AM on May 14, 2013
Still...
So, if you go to Target to buy groceries one week, but then go and buy yourself some clothing next week Mint doesn't know the difference. The second Target transaction would be marked as groceries.
Yeah. This is one thing I worry about. I have a lot of vendors from whom I but things in multiple categories... I don't want mint assuming everything I buy from Amazon is a gift (or a book, or a computer part) just because the last thing was...
Also, I do believe there is a search option of "date posted" and "date of transaction". Which might help you if you throw up a weekly "date posted" search and make sure everyones going to the right categories.
Oh, I would really like that feature. I just spend a few minutes looking, but could not find it. If it exists and anyone could point me to it, that would go a long way toward solving my problem.
And, upon reading that link, if you're tracking taxable/reimbursable things, you don't need to change categories, you need tags!
I think I need both. For my taxes - it's not enough just to know which items are tax-deductible- I also need to know what categories they are in. (Or maybe I am missing some cool feature of the tags system....)
posted by ManInSuit at 11:20 AM on May 14, 2013
If I may piggyback: is there a way to get Mint to learn that >$20 at the convenience store is Auto/Fuel, but <$20 is Food/Snacks?
posted by kimota at 3:10 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by kimota at 3:10 PM on May 14, 2013
For vendors like Target or Amazon, from whom you buy more than one type of good or service, you can set up a rule that all incoming transactions from them be labeled something custom like *CATEGORIZE*, so you will notice them easily and can categorize appropriately, splitting the transaction if necessary.
posted by D.Billy at 6:34 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by D.Billy at 6:34 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: For vendors like Target or Amazon, from whom you buy more than one type of good or service, you can set up a rule that all incoming transactions from them be labeled something custom like *CATEGORIZE*, so you will notice them easily and can categorize appropriately
That is a great idea! I will try that.
(Unless anyone can see some reason, that I am overlooking, for which that might be a not-great idea?)
posted by ManInSuit at 8:13 PM on May 14, 2013
That is a great idea! I will try that.
(Unless anyone can see some reason, that I am overlooking, for which that might be a not-great idea?)
posted by ManInSuit at 8:13 PM on May 14, 2013
I do the same thing as D.Billy. I set a rule to mark all Target, Amazon, Costco, and I think iTunes transactions Uncategorized, so that way their categories are literally in bold and I have a visual reminder that there are transactions I need to revisit (splitting as appropriate or whatever) manually. Everything else is automatically categorized very neatly, which improved over time with some training.
kimota: Not that I'm aware of. It's categorizing algorithms don't have hard lines that to differentiate by price.
posted by jroybal at 8:42 PM on May 14, 2013
kimota: Not that I'm aware of. It's categorizing algorithms don't have hard lines that to differentiate by price.
posted by jroybal at 8:42 PM on May 14, 2013
Response by poster: For vendors like Target or Amazon, from whom you buy more than one type of good or service, you can set up a rule that all incoming transactions from them be labeled something custom like *CATEGORIZE*, so you will notice them easily and can categorize appropriately
Urgh... I wanted to try this. But it seems that, as near as I can tell, if I tell mint to auto-categorize Amazon as uncatergorized (or *CATEGORIZE* or anything else), it will re-categorize all my past purchase to uncategorized as well (Mint says "35 "Amazon" purchases will be renamed to "Amazon" and categorized as xxx."). Geez. This auto-categorization thing is not pretty. Or am I missing something? Can anyone point to a way to auto-categorize future transactions without recategorizing the old transactions?
posted by ManInSuit at 10:04 PM on May 14, 2013
Urgh... I wanted to try this. But it seems that, as near as I can tell, if I tell mint to auto-categorize Amazon as uncatergorized (or *CATEGORIZE* or anything else), it will re-categorize all my past purchase to uncategorized as well (Mint says "35 "Amazon" purchases will be renamed to "Amazon" and categorized as xxx."). Geez. This auto-categorization thing is not pretty. Or am I missing something? Can anyone point to a way to auto-categorize future transactions without recategorizing the old transactions?
posted by ManInSuit at 10:04 PM on May 14, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
Every couple of days, just take a look at the last few days of transactions and clean up anything that went wrong. Over time, this resolves itself.
posted by deanc at 8:00 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]