Income sources and categories

Every transaction points at either an income source or an expense category. Both lists are yours to edit, and both are stored on the server with your account.

You edit them in Finance, in the settings tab, under Income sources and Expense categories.

Income sources

An income source answers “where did this money come from”. Todowl ships a starter set grouped into work, business, other income and projects, covering things like salary, freelance, overtime, business income, investments, dividends, side hustle, interest, rental income, gifts and refunds.

Add your own with Add source and type a name. Click an existing name to rename it in place.

Keep the list short. Sources are useful precisely because the summary breaks the month down by them, and a breakdown with twenty rows is not a breakdown.

Sources and hours

Because the monthly summary reports income and hours per source, it pays to make each source something you could actually measure an hourly rate for. One row per client or per contract works well. One row called “work” does not tell you anything.

Expense categories

An expense category answers “what did this money go on”. The starter set is grouped so the list stays navigable:

• Housing: rent, mortgage, home improvement
• Bills and utilities: gas and electric, water, internet and cable, phone, garbage
• Food and dining: groceries, restaurants and bars, coffee shops
• Auto and transport: auto payment, fuel, public transit, maintenance, parking and tolls, taxi and ride shares
• Travel and lifestyle: travel and vacation, entertainment, clothing and shopping, personal care, hobbies, education
• Health and wellness: medical, dentist, fitness
• Gifts and donations: gifts, charity
• Financial: loan repayment, fees, cash and ATM, insurance, taxes
• Subscriptions: subscriptions, music and streaming
• Business: advertising and promo, employee wages, office rent, office supplies, business travel
• Transfers: transfer, credit card payment
• Other: uncategorised, miscellaneous

Add your own with Add category, and rename any of them by clicking the name.

Choosing a level of detail

The useful test is whether a category would ever change a decision. “Groceries” changes decisions. “Groceries, dairy” almost never does, and the extra precision costs you a choice on every single transaction.

Start coarse. Split a category only after you have looked at a month and genuinely wanted the detail.

Family mode

If more than one person’s money goes through the same ledger, the settings tab has a family mode switch. Turn it on and you can add up to five members, each with a name and a photo, and mark who a transaction belongs to.