Categories & Auto-Categorisation Rules

Go to Organise in the sidebar. You will see categories grouped into tabs by project. The defaults cover everything from Groceries and Transport to Childcare and Subscriptions — all tailored for UK spending patterns.

Click Add Category to create your own. Give it a name, pick a colour, and assign it to a project tab. Custom categories work exactly like built-in ones — you can set budgets against them and create auto-categorisation rules.

Rules are text patterns that match transaction descriptions. When you import a CSV, JoinFunds checks each transaction against your rules and assigns the first matching category. The matching algorithm is simple:

1. Only active rules are checked
2. Longer patterns are checked first (more specific wins)
3. Within the same length, lower priority number wins
4. Matching is case-insensitive substring search
5. First match wins — no further rules are checked

For example, "TESCO PHARMACY" (14 characters) beats "TESCO" (5 characters), so a pharmacy purchase at Tesco gets categorised as Health rather than Groceries.

Click on any category, then Add Rule. Type the pattern that appears in your bank statement — for example, "NETFLIX" or "COSTA COFFEE". The rule will match any transaction whose description contains that text.

If two rules could match the same transaction, priority decides the winner. Go to a category's rule list and drag rules up or down to change their order. Lower priority numbers are checked first.