Transactions
Learn how to effectively track your spending with transactions. Turn your budget plan into reality by recording every purchase and payment. CashCat encourages manual transaction tracking, as it helps with improving your budgeting mentality and keeps your money in your control. In the future, we may add an option for automatic bank integration for periodic transaction syncing.
Understanding Transactions
What is a Transaction?
A transaction is any money movement - whether it's spending money (like buying groceries) or receiving money (like your paycheck). Each transaction should be assigned to a budget category.
Types of Transactions
Expenses (Outflow)
- • Shop purchases
- • Bill payments
- • Transfers to savings
- • ATM withdrawals
Income (Inflow)
- • Salary / wages
- • Freelance payments
- • Investment returns
- • Refunds
Recording Transactions
Enter Transaction Details
Record the amount, vendor, and date of your transaction. We recommend adding a description so that you'll remember what it was for later.
Select Account
Choose which bank account or credit card was used for this transaction. This keeps your account balances accurate.
Assign to Category
Choose the budget category this transaction belongs to. This is how your spending gets tracked against your budget plan.
Smart Transaction Habits
Record Transactions Quickly
Enter transactions as soon as possible after making them. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to remember details and categorize accurately. We recommend logging transactions immediately after making them if online or in-store purchases, and if that's not possible, in the evening of the same day.
Split Complex Transactions
If one purchase covers multiple categories (like buying groceries AND household items at Aldi), split it into separate transactions for accurate category tracking.
Include Transfers
Record transfers between accounts (like moving money to savings) as transactions. This keeps all your account balances accurate in CashCat. If the other account is also in CashCat, the inflow as a 'refund' will cancel out the 'outflow' and it won't affect your budget.
💡 Transaction Tracking Tips
- Use consistent naming for similar transactions (e.g., always "Esso" not sometimes "That Corner Shop")
- Review transactions weekly to ensure everything is categorized correctly
Start Tracking
Ready to start recording your transactions?