Categories, subcategories and projects
Free · projects are Premium
Categories say what the money was for; subcategories refine it; projects (Premium) answer a question categories cannot — what a job, a client or a building site cost and earned in total, across categories and across months.
Categories and subcategories
The categories you keep are the lines your income and your expenses get reported in. It is worth choosing them with the question you will ask later in mind: which were my biggest expenses this year, and where did the income actually come from. One category called Everything else answers nothing; thirty answer nothing either. Subcategories are there so a line can stay broad enough to read and detailed enough to act on — Car, and underneath it fuel, insurance, repairs. Projects cut across all of it, and total a job or a client whatever categories it touched.
The app ships with categories for personal and professional spending — the filter at the top of the list shows one side or both — and any can be renamed or added with a name, colour and icon of your own; the icons are arranged by subject. Any category can be renamed, merged into another or deleted, and one already in use is merged, never deleted, so no movement is left without a line. Each category can hold subcategories, and reports break down by both levels.
The + asks first which category is being created — personal or professional, expense or income. In the exclusive modes (Personal only, Business only) only the active side is offered.
Within one side and type, a name a category already has is refused — A category with this name already exists. — capitals and accents aside. From version 1.7.8 a category the app comes with, while it keeps its own name, also holds its name in every one of the app's languages: with the app in English, an income category called Salário is refused beside Salary.
Subcategories: none come with the app
Subcategories are the part that does not come made — they are yours to create, from the menu on a category, or without leaving the movement form: tap the category already chosen, and it offers to add a subcategory under it, or to edit the category itself. From then on, a movement in that category asks for a subcategory before saving, so nothing lands without the detail.
A subcategory can also take over the name a category had. Create the subcategory, delete the category it replaces, and the list gets shorter — fewer names to scroll past on every movement.
Projects (Premium)
Mark movements, documents and budgets with a project and the app adds it all up: expenses, income, invoices still open. A project has a side like everything else — the Professional button on its form decides whether it is a job of the business or one of your own, and the categories offered follow that choice. Projects created before version 1.5.0 are professional, which was the only kind that existed.
- Settings › Formats › switch Projects on (Premium).
- Menu › Categories › the Projects tab › +. A project has a name, a description, a state — Active, Closed or Archived — a colour, and dates if it has them.
- Pick the project in the movement, document or budget form. Reports gain a by project view.
The switch shows the Projects tab and the Project field on the documents and movements of the project's side, with budgets and a report by project. Each form offers only the projects of its own side: a business movement or document, the business projects; from version 1.7.4, a personal movement, the personal ones — until then a personal project could be created but no movement could carry it. Changing the side of the entry drops a project of the other side. A project is never required: a movement saves without one.
A project can also narrow the categories: tick some on it and only those are offered while it is selected; tick none and every category of its side is. From version 1.7.4 the project form says which on each side: a personal project with none ticked uses the generic personal categories, a business one the generic professional categories.
Budgets per category — or per project
A budget can be set per category, per subcategory or per project, monthly, weekly or yearly, and the app warns when it reaches the Alert threshold set on it, from 50 to 100 % (80 % to start with). See Cash flow and budgets.
Importing with the right names
When bringing data in from a spreadsheet, category and subcategory names must be the ones in the app — capitals and accents aside, and a category the app comes with also by its name in any of the app's languages (in the app's own files, from version 1.7.8); the import never creates a category. The reference list the app exports shows every name with its exact spelling; see Bringing data in.
Questions
- Are categories limited on the free plan?
- No. Categories and subcategories are unlimited on every plan. Projects are Premium.
- What is the difference between a subcategory and a project?
- A subcategory refines one category (Food › Groceries). A project cuts across categories and months: everything a job, a client or a site cost and earned in total.
- Can a category be created from inside a movement?
- Yes — the movement form can create a category or a subcategory on the spot, without leaving it. From version 1.7.5 a category created with the + in a document, a schedule, a bank line in Reconciliation or a row of Review Import is also selected straight away, as in the movement form — as long as it is of the type and side that form offers.
Related guides
Checked against ZeniCash 1.5.0 on 2026-09-10. Where a feature is Premium, it says so.