Transaction categories are one of the transaction properties that you can use. There is a separate list of categories for expenses and a separate list for incomes. On first use, MoneyWiz creates a default list of categories for you but you can easily create new ones, modify existing or delete the ones you don't need.

If you go to two shops - let's say Tesco and Walmart - to buy groceries, you will have different payees for each of those transactions but the same category: groceries. This allows you to generate category-based reports to see how much you're spending on groceries overall, regardless of the shop you're buying in (of course, it is possible to customize the report to filter some things out).

First go to MoneyWiz Settings by clicking on the gear icon in the menu. Once you're in Settings, click on Categories section. You can see existing categories in that list. Remember that some categories can have sub-categories. In that case, we call the category that contains sub-category a "parent" category. You can expand parent categories to view sub-categories by clicking on the > button on the right.

There are two ways of creating transaction categories: during transaction entry and via MoneyWiz Settings.

To create payees during transaction creation, start creating a new transaction or modify an existing one and then type in the transaction categories field. If the category you've typed does not exist, it will be created.

The category will be created as main category -- if you wish to make it a sub-category of some other category, you'll need to edit it (see below). Same goes for selecting a category icon.

To create new transaction categories, first go to MoneyWiz Settings > Categories as explained earlier. To create a new category, click the New button and enter a name.

Unlike payees or tags, which only contain a name, categories can also have a color set, as well as an icon. However, both of those options have to be enabled in the Transaction layout settings first.

To modify existing transaction categories, first go to MoneyWiz Settings > Categories as explained earlier. To modify a category, just click on it.

If you decide that two or more categories don't need to be separate and you can do with just one for all transactions, you can merge them. To begin, first go to MoneyWiz Settings > Categories as explained earlier. Enter bulk-edit mode by clicking on the Edit button and select multiple categories you wish to merge (on Mac, you need to hold command key on your keyboard while clicking on them) then click on Merge. You'll be asked which category should remain after the merge.

If you decide that you no longer need some categories, you can delete them. To begin, first go to MoneyWiz Settings > Categories as explained earlier. Enter bulk-edit mode by clicking on the Edit button and select multiple categories you wish to delete (on Mac, you need to hold command key on your keyboard while clicking on them) then click on Delete. You'll be asked for a confirmation. If you confirm, the categories will be deleted and also removed from all transactions they were used in.