Manage Transaction Categories

PaperLink personal accounting organizes transactions into Income and Expense categories. The Categories tab in accounting settings lets you browse, add, edit, archive, and delete categories.

How Do I Open Category Settings?

1. Click Settings in the sidebar.
2. Open the Accounting tab.
3. Click the Categories tab.

The screen has two panels. The left panel shows the category tree with Income and Expense tabs. The right panel shows the detail form when you select a category.

What Are the Income and Expense Tabs?

Categories are split into two separate lists:

• Income - salary, freelance revenue, investment returns, and other money coming in.
• Expense - rent, groceries, subscriptions, and other money going out.

Click the tab at the top of the category list to switch between Income and Expense.

What Are the Default Categories?

PaperLink creates a set of default categories when you start using personal accounting. These cover common personal finance scenarios - housing, utilities, transportation, food, healthcare, employment income, investment income, and more.

Default categories are regular categories. You can rename, reparent, archive, or delete any of them.

What Is the Uncategorized Category?

Each type (Income and Expense) has a system Uncategorized category. It is always at the top of the list and marked with a lock icon.

The Uncategorized category cannot be renamed, archived, or deleted. It serves as the fallback for transactions that do not have a category assigned.

How Do I Add a Category?

1. Click Add Category at the top of the category list.
2. Enter a name in the Category Name field (up to 100 characters).
3. Optionally select a Parent Category from the dropdown to nest it under an existing category.
4. Click Create.

The new category appears in the tree under the currently active tab (Income or Expense).

How Does the Category Tree Structure Work?

Categories support up to three levels of nesting:

Level 1: Housing & Rent
  Level 2: Rent
    Level 3: Monthly Rent

When adding or editing a category, the Parent Category dropdown only shows categories that would not exceed the three-level limit.

How Do I Edit a Category?

1. Click a category in the tree.
2. Change the Category Name or Parent Category in the detail panel.
3. Click Save.

How Do I Archive a Category?

Archiving hides a category from selection without deleting it.

1. Select the category in the tree.
2. Click Archive in the detail panel.

If the category has subcategories, they are archived together.

To view archived categories, enable the Show archived filter. To restore, select an archived category and click Restore.

How Do I Delete a Category?

1. Select the category in the tree.
2. Click Delete in the detail panel.
3. Confirm in the dialog.

If the category has subcategories, all of them are deleted together. The confirmation dialog shows the total count.

How Do I Search and Filter Categories?

When you have many categories, use the search bar at the top to filter by name. Use the collapse/expand toggle to show or hide subcategories.

The status filter lets you view Active, Archived, or All categories.

Related

• Manage Company Categories - team-shared categories for company accounting
• Add a Financial Account - create bank, cash, crypto, and other accounts
• Manage Currency Exchange Rates - set up currencies for your financial accounts
• Reset Personal Accounting Data - bulk delete or restore default categories
• Use Description Autocomplete - auto-fill categories from previous transactions