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Categories and counterparties

A category answers the question “on what”, a counterparty — the question “to whom”. Every transaction always has a category and optionally a counterparty and a note. Well-tuned categories are the foundation of useful analytics.

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The category tree: subcategories sit under their parent. Clicking “Amount” reorders the branches and the subcategories inside them by amount, a second click reverses the order; then “Share” and back to “Name” — A to Z.
On the phone: “References” → “Categories” — the spending ring for the month and “All categories”; the chevron expands a parent’s subcategories. The ⇅ button → “By amount”, “By number of operations”, “By name”: subcategories are sorted inside their parent.

Starter set

When you create your first book, Svodly fills in about 50 ready-made categories: “Food”, “Transport”, “Cafés”, “Subscriptions”, “Salary”, “Gifts”, “Taxes” and so on. Each comes with an icon and a color from a single palette.

This set is a starting point. You can rename, delete or change the icon of any of them. If something is unnecessary — delete it without hesitation; if something is missing — add your own.

You don't have to create a new category in advance: you can create one right from the transaction form. The category picker always has a Create a new category button under the list, and once you start typing a name it becomes Create category “…” with that name filled in. Both lead to the full category creation sheet — the same one that opens from this screen: the name is already filled in from your query, and you pick the icon, colour and parent right away. After Create on the computer or Save on the phone the app brings you back to the transaction form with the new category already selected.

For transfers creating a category is not available — transfer categories are system ones. A counterparty, a project and a tag are created from the phone the same way: a full creation sheet with the name pre-filled and a return to the transaction form.

Hierarchy

Categories are nested, with no limit on depth. You can have “Food” as a parent and under it “Groceries”, “Cafés”, “Delivery”, and if you like — yet another level inside. Child categories inherit the colour of the root category of their branch but pick their own icon: both “Cafés” and “Cafés → Coffee to go” carry the colour of “Food”, however deep they sit.

In analytics you can look at both the top level (“Food — ₽32,000”) and expand it (“of which 18,000 is groceries, 9,000 is cafés”). The parent's total automatically gathers all the children.

If the “Food” category is a parent and has subcategories, then direct transactions into “Food” are also allowed and go into the “other” group. There's no need to create “Food → Other” by hand.

Sorting

On the computer, on the web and on a tablet, click a column header to sort the categories table — “Name”, “Transactions”, “Amount” or “Share”. An arrow by the active column shows the direction, and a second click reverses the order. A phone has no columns: the ⇅ button on the right of the “All categories” row opens a menu with the same four options.

By default categories go by name, A to Z, on every level of the tree, and subcategories follow the same order inside their parent. An empty category keeps its place, and its first transaction does not move it — the structure you built with names holds. Sorting uses the numbers you see in the row: on the computer, on the web and on a tablet — for the selected period, in the phone app — for the current month. The last sort you picked is remembered on the device and restored when you open the screen; it is not synced between devices.

Icons and colors

Each category is an icon from the Lucide set and a color from the Svodly palette (12 pairs of shades for the light and dark themes, fine-tuned by a designer). This is done so the categories and analytics screens stay readable even with a hundred categories — no bright reds next to crimsons and burgundies.

The icon library is shared by every directory — 416 glyphs in 17 groups, and any of them can go to a category, a counterparty, a project or an issuer in investments. Only the default icon and the order of the groups differ: categories lead with everyday groups, projects with “Projects and goals”.

The icon picker is the last block of the form, below every other field: a pool of 416 glyphs takes up a lot of room, and the fields you fill in every time belong above it. Every form with an icon works this way — categories, counterparties, projects, issuers.
Desktop and web: the pencil on the category page → the “Icon” block at the end of the form → a search in Russian (“пицца”, pizza) → a glyph from the results → the preview at the top changes at once → “Save”.
Phone: the same search works in English too — “bus” finds the bus among 416 glyphs; tap the glyph, then “Save”.
The colour is picked on the root category only. On a subcategory the palette is locked, and the line below it names where the colour comes from — change it there and the whole branch is recoloured. Counterparty subgroups work the same way.
From the category page the pencil opens the “Category” sheet: a color palette and a set of Lucide icons, while the preview at the top updates immediately. “Save” — and the category is recolored right in the list.
On the phone: Directories → Categories → expand “Entertainment” → the category → “Edit”: the “Sky” colour (the preview changes at once), an icon search for “игр” (games) → “Gamepad” → “Save” — “Entertainment” and its subcategories take the new colour.

Counterparties

A counterparty is a specific person or organization. “Magnit” is a counterparty of the “Groceries” category. “My son's school” is a counterparty of the “Education” category. “Ivan” is a counterparty of the “Debts” category.

Counterparties appear automatically as you enter a transaction: you type a name in the “To” field — it becomes a new counterparty, and next time Svodly will suggest it in the hints. You can also add them in advance in the Counterparties section.

Counterparty INN

The counterparty card has an “INN” field — in a personal book too, not only in business. Enter 10 or 12 digits: Svodly validates the checksum and warns “The checksum doesn't match” if you made a typo. The INN helps link transactions to the same recipient — including during bank-statement import, where counterparties are matched precisely by INN. The field is optional — you can leave it empty.

Autofill from the EGRUL by INN and the extended details (OGRN, KPP, address) remain a business book feature.

Favorite counterparties

The ones you pay most often are handy to keep close: turn on the “Favorite” switch in the counterparty form. Such a counterparty rises to the top of the counterparty picker (in the transaction form, for instance) and of the “Counterparties” reference — first among the top-level counterparties — and gets a star. The switch is there on the computer and on the web, in personal and business books. The mobile form does not have it, but the app on the phone honours the flag: the same counterparties come first, with a star.

The “VkusVill” card → the pencil: a typo in “Tax ID” shows “Checksum doesn’t match”, so we fix the last digit. “Favourite” → “Save”: “VkusVill” now comes first in the directory with a star, and first in the full payee list of the transaction form.
On the phone the “Tax ID” is edited in the same payee form, but there is no “Favourite” switch: payees starred on the computer or the web come first, with a star, on the phone too.
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Sorting counterparties

The “Counterparties” reference sorts the same way as categories. On the computer, on the web and on a tablet, click the “Name”, “Transactions”, “Income” or “Expense” column header: an arrow by the active column shows the direction, and a second click reverses the order. “Expense” is compared by absolute value, so the largest spending comes first. On a phone the ⇅ button opens a menu with the same columns: on the web it sits on the right of the “Counterparties · N” card header (a collapsed card has no button), in the app — on the right of the “month / all time” row.

There is one order for the whole screen. On the computer and on the web subgroups are sorted by the same column inside their parent, while the mobile app shows a flat list and sorts it as a whole. Favorite counterparties stay pinned at the top whatever the sort. The default is by name: an empty counterparty keeps its place, and its first transaction does not move it. Sorting uses the numbers you see in the row: on the computer, on the web and on a tablet — for the selected period, in the phone app — for the current month. The last sort you picked is remembered on the device and is not synced between devices.

In a business book counterparties are split into sections by type, and on a phone each one gets its own ⇅ button: on the web in the section header, in the app in the group title. The business screen of the app has no favorite marks, so nothing is pinned there.
The “Counterparties” directory with “Transactions · Income · Expense” columns for the month or for all time. “All time” → click “Expense”: the largest spending comes first, a second click reverses the order; then “Transactions” and back to “Name”.
On the phone: “References” → “Counterparties” — the month’s amount in large type, all time below it. The ⇅ button → “By expenses”: the month’s largest spending comes first; then “By number of operations” and “By name”.

The counterparty page

Click a counterparty in the reference and its page opens. On the computer and on the web it is a nested screen, like the category page; on the phone it is a tap on the row (edit with a long press; in a business book a long press opens the counterparty card with its details, open obligations and documents).

At the top is the net over the whole history: income and expense together, the number of transactions, the dates of the first and the last one and the “transactions / income / expense” figures. These are the same numbers as in the reference row for “all time”. A counterparty with subgroups (say, “Pyaterochka” with separate stores) gathers the transactions of all its subgroups — just like its row in the reference. Currencies are not mixed: the turnover in other currencies goes on a separate line, and transactions tagged “Not counted” stay out of the numbers but are visible in the list. The “Cash flow” card next to the total (on the computer and on the web) works the same way: the columns are in the page's currency, and other currencies go on an “also …” line under the total.

Below are two tabs:

The page header has the counterparty edit and a Transaction button: the form opens with the counterparty already picked, and the category fills itself in from it — just as when you pick it by hand. On the phone the “+” of the bottom bar does the same.

Clicking a counterparty in the reference opens its page: the all-time net, the journal on the “Transactions” tab and the donut charts on the “Analytics” tab.
On the phone the counterparty page opens with a tap on the reference row: the net, “Transactions” and “Analytics”; editing is a long press.

The category fills itself in

You don't have to pick a category by hand every time. For a familiar counterparty Svodly suggests its most frequent category from history — that works with no setup at all. And to state the link explicitly (“Pyaterochka” → “Groceries”) or to sort transactions by words in the description, create an auto-categorization rule on the neighbouring “Auto-category rules” tab (on the phone — the “Auto-categorization rules” item in the “Categories” header).

Why separate them from the category

A category is a typical line of spending (“Communications”), while a counterparty is a specific recipient (“MTS”, “Megafon”, “Yota”). In reports it's handy to look at both: “how much went on communications in total” and “how much exactly MTS was this year”.

In business books and when keeping books together, counterparties are especially useful: “office landlord”, “tax office”, “kindergarten” — these are specific entities you need separate reports for.

The category page

A click (a tap on the phone) on a category in the reference opens its own page — built like an account card. Editing the category is the pencil in the page header, while the page itself answers the question “what is actually going on with this category”.

For a parent category the page counts together with its subcategories — the same logic as budgets and filters use: “Food” shows both “Cafés” and “Groceries”.

The page counts exactly what “Summary” and “Analytics” count: transactions under the system “Not counted” tag stay out of its totals, and a split receipt is counted by its parts — only the part filed under “Groceries” lands there. Such a receipt's row in the table is labelled with the amount of its own part and a “+N” marker — how many other categories hold the rest of that receipt. The “Categories” reference distributes the parts the same way.

Clicking a category in the reference opens its page: the monthly total with the delta against the previous month, the figures, the “Operations” tab with the category journal and the “Analytics” tab with its own period.
On the phone the category page opens with the same tap on a reference row and carries the same tabs.

A budget straight from the category page

To put a limit on a category you don't have to look for it in “Budgets”: press Set a budget on its page, enter the amount and save — the “Monthly budget” line shows straight away how much is left. The month, “from this month on” and carrying the leftover over work exactly as in “Budgets”, and the limit can be deleted from the same form.

In the “Categories” reference itself, a category with a limit gets a thin bar in the status colour under its name — at the same thresholds as on the “Budgets” screen: you can see that “Cafés” is nearing its limit without opening budgets. The bar shows on every platform, the wide table on a tablet included. It is always monthly; the “month / all time” switch does not change it. A subcategory without its own limit has no bar — its spending counts towards the parent’s budget.

The category page → “Set a budget” → the amount → “Create”: a “Monthly budget” line appears under the monthly total, and the category gets a limit bar in the reference.
On the phone — “Set” in the “No monthly budget set” line of the category page: the budget sheet opens with the category already picked, and after “Save” the “Monthly budget” line shows how much of the limit is left — and the limit bar appears in the reference.

From a reference to a page with its transactions

The transactions of any reference entry live on its own page, on the “Transactions” tab: the category page, the project page, the tag page and the counterparty page. A parent category and a counterparty with subgroups gather the transactions of the whole branch. There is no separate “Open transactions” button in reference rows — these pages play that role; pressing a donut share on the “Analytics” tab leads into the journal with a ready filter.

The references themselves are collected into a collapsible “References” group at the bottom of the sidebar on the computer and on the web, and into a row of the same name in the sections menu on the phone.

Deletion and merging

You can delete a category or a counterparty if they have no transactions. If they do, Svodly will offer to move them into another category and then delete. This way transactions aren't lost and you can safely reorganize the list.

Merging two categories (“Cafés” and “Restaurants” → “Cafés and restaurants”) is the same steps: create the new one, move transactions from both old ones, delete the old ones.

“Coffee & snacks” → the pencil → “Delete”: the category has transactions, so “Move transactions to” appears → “Cafés & restaurants” → “Move and delete”. A notice says how many transactions were moved, and “Cafés & restaurants” now shows more transactions and a larger total.
On the phone: “Coffee & snacks” → “Edit” → “Delete category” → “Delete” → the “Move transactions” sheet (817 transactions) → “Cafés & restaurants”: “Coffee & snacks” is gone from the directory, and “Cafés & restaurants” now has 7 transactions this month instead of 2.

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