Aurum
Download

Spending Tracking & Categorisation

Every transaction captured and categorised: a full map of accounts, a category list and rulebook, weekly and month-end routines, tags and dashboards, and the advanced tools that show where the money really goes.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Spending Tracking & Categorisation, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

Before you start: this plan is general information to help you organise your own money decisions. It is not financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Check decisions that matter with a qualified, licensed adviser in your country, and remember that investing and trading can lose money.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

202

Starter tasks

💷 Personal Finance

Spending Tracking & Categorisation

Tracking every transaction and categorising spending to see where money actually goes each month.

  1. Choosing how you will track spending
  2. Map of every account, card and wallet
  3. Ninety days of transactions in one place
  4. Designing a first spending category list
  5. Category rulebook for awkward purchases
  6. First fully categorised month
  7. Three-month spending baseline by category
  8. Fixed, flexible and discretionary labels
  9. Capturing cash spending in the tracker
  10. Bank feed connection and data access check
  11. Weekly categorisation session
  12. Monthly uncategorised queue clear-out
  13. Month-end spending close
  14. Refunds and returns in the right category
  15. Transfers and card repayments kept out of spending
  16. Payee rules for automatic categorisation
  17. Quarterly category trend review
  18. Tracker backup and history archive
  19. Grocery spend per person per week
  20. Reading bank CSV exports correctly
  21. Splitting one payment across categories
  22. Decoding cryptic merchant names
  23. Tags for trips, people and projects
  24. Spreadsheet formulas for spending summaries
  25. Annual and irregular costs as monthly figures
  26. Foreign currency spending and card fees
  27. One-screen spending dashboard
  28. Category list review after three months
  29. Cutting weekly tracking time to fifteen minutes
  30. Small purchases total over three months
  31. Top twenty merchants by annual spend
  32. Spending pattern across the pay month
  33. Switching tracking tools without losing history
  34. Comparing your spending with national household figures
  35. Tracking the full cost of one holiday
  36. Wedding or big celebration cost log
  37. House move spending log
  38. One year of tracking review
  39. Combined spending view for a couple
  40. Per-child spending tags for families
  41. Separating side-business costs from household spending
  42. Tracking spending on a fixed pension income
  43. Spending records for someone you care for
  44. Light tracking mode for chaotic months
  45. Personal inflation rate from your own spending
  46. Staple price log for twenty regular items
  47. Categorisation accuracy audit
  48. Plain-text accounting for spending records
  49. Scripted import and categorisation
  50. Ten-year spending history from old statements

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Choosing how you will track spending

Most people give up on spending tracking within a month because the method does not fit how they pay: a notebook fails someone who taps a card twenty times a week, and an app with automatic feeds frustrates someone who wants to see every line. Choosing between a budgeting app, a spreadsheet fed by statement exports or a paper log, against how you actually spend, decides whether the habit lasts past the second month.

First tasks

  • Count last month's transactions on your main account statement
  • List three tracking methods you would realistically keep using
  • Score each method on cost, bank import, privacy and weekly time
  • Set up the chosen tool and bookmark it on your phone

Map of every account, card and wallet

Spending hides in places the main bank account never shows: a credit card kept for online shopping, a PayPal balance, a store card, a prepaid travel card, an instalment app, gift cards and cash. Listing every source money leaves from is the step that stops a tracker reporting 70 percent of your spending and calling it the whole picture.

First tasks

  • Write down every card in your wallet and every payment app on your phone
  • Add accounts that pay direct debits but have no card attached
  • Note how each account lets you export its transactions
  • Mark dormant accounts you could close to make tracking simpler

Ninety days of transactions in one place

Three months is the shortest window that smooths out a birthday, a car repair or a five-week month. Downloading 90 days of statements from every account on your map and putting them into one sheet or app gives you the raw material for every later category decision, and shows how long the export step really takes.

First tasks

  • Download the last 90 days from your main current account as CSV
  • Repeat the download for every other account on your map
  • Combine the files into one sheet with the same column order
  • Delete duplicate rows created by overlapping downloads

Make it yours.

Install Spending Tracking & Categorisation, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.