Transactions: Poor Naming/Categorization

[Damon]

Hi Folks,

We're going to do some more investigative work to improve the transaction renaming and categorization process. In order to do so, I need help from our community in making this better & invite people to contact us (https://wwws.mint.com/contact.event) with these issues. Please file under: Bug Transactions.

Here's what we need:
1. email address of your account
2. the date of the transaction.
3. the category/name that we assigned to the transaction.
4. what the original name of the transaction was (you can get this by hovering your mouse over the transaction).
5. If categorization, we will also need what the category *should* have been.
6. The name of the bank/url of bank (just for tracking purposes)

We will also be doing the same for no category transactions, such as when the transaction name is simply a series of numbers that came across from your bank.

[mintfeedback]

Hello Damon and everyone.
I found this in the forum and I have been reading, so I know you guys are working on it but I just thought to chip in...

Damon this is you answering someone's question:

Have you tried creating labels for these categories? It is our way of letting folks create custom categories right now".

This works just fine but the labels is only added to one transaction without the ability to have it apply to all the transacion named the same, in example BLOCKBUSTER

If I label Blockbuster "Things I do for fun" and I search for that label in the search box I will only be given the Blockbuster transaction that I specifically labeled and not all the blockbuster transaction.

Can we instead be able to create our own categories and be given the option of always categorizing specific transaction under the new category so that in the example if I were to search for "Thing I do for fun" every single Blockbuster transaction would appear?

This already happens with the categories that you guys created, It would be great if everyone could create thier own.

Thank you again for a great service that I am sure will only improve and become more functional.

Sorry if this is long.
Pulcione

[tleishman]

I agree. Not being able to customize my categories is extremely frustrating and one of the main issues for me not fully committing to using mint yet. The other day I was trying to categorize the cost for my commute (ferry and Bus) and it doesn't fit anywhere. I also had nowhere to put a speeding ticket i recently earned.

[Darin Spence]

I am just not able to align Mint with my budget categorization preferences. I spent a hour tonight giving it a fair shot, but the available categories are just not granular enough for my family. For example, where should I categorize children's activities (dance lessons, field trips, etc.)?

I love Mint for the auto-assignment of a category to transactions. I can customize labels, but not use them in my budget. Very frustrating. Would you consider giving labels similar functionality to categories? Specifically the ability to use labels in the budget.

Given the activity in the forums on this topic, I'm sure there is a good reason for maintaining a static, global list of categories. I'm curious though, what problems arise for Mint if users are able to create their own categories?

[rxfrchng]

where should I categorize children's activities (dance lessons, field trips, etc.)?

Kids & Education

[mintly]

Just wanted to add that I love Mint but rarely ever log in primarily because of one reason: lack of custom categories. Lack of this functionality dramatically reduces the utility of Mint for my family.

[Damon]

The closest thing we have right now would be labels. The problem is that they currently don't appear in spending trends (made it known as a product request).

[johnmblack]

Just wanted to add that I love Mint but rarely ever log in primarily because of one reason: lack of custom categories. Lack of this functionality dramatically reduces the utility of Mint for my family.

I second that. Mint is pretty much useless for me b/c of its archaic category list (and its weird categorization bugs. Mortgage payment, from "franklin credit management", keeps getting auto-renamed to "franklin mills" and category=Retail. Sure, I spent a thousand dollars at the mall last month. Not really.) :mad:

I actually spend MORE time UN-doing things that Mint tried to do for me, than I do categorizing uncategorized transactions. Sheesh!

[considerphi]

I get all sorts of wrong renames and miscategorizations. here's a description of a common issue.

One of my banks categorizes all of my online bills as
"Preauthorized WD" followed by the payees name. So
Preauthorized WD ERIC SMITH or Preauthorized WD BILL TIPTON. For ease of reading this message I'm going to shorten that to PWD.

Sometimes I'll get a transaction originally named PWD ERIC SMITH that's been automatically renamed PWD MARY SHELLEY.

When I try to rename it back to PWD ERIC SMITH, I can do that, but the rule checkbox says, Always rename PWD MARY SHELLEY as PWD ERIC SMITH, which is really what I'm trying to avoid. The rule should really take the original transaction name as the "from" and the final typed in name as the "to".

Does that make sense? I hope so. All this painful renaming and recategorizing is making me come back less and less.

Thanks
Shimona

[Damon]

The best thing to do is file a bug for this. It actually might be an issue as to what we can pull from the bank.


As our CRM tool isn't always the best at accepting email responses back, please use the contact form at https://wwws.mint.com/contact.event to provide the information below.

Here's what we need to file bugs for naming and categorization:
1. Email address of your account
2. The date and amount of the transaction.
3. The category/name that Mint assigned to the transaction.
4. What the original name of the transaction was (you can get this by hovering your mouse over the transaction).
5. If categorization, we will also need what the category *should* have been.
6. The name of the bank/url of bank for the transaction in question (if available).

[mxxxxh]

In addition to being able to add different categories I have another problem. I want to be able to rename existing categories. For non-Christians, having every religious related transaction categorized under "Church" is annoying. thanks

[ufpspock]

In addition to being able to add different categories I have another problem. I want to be able to rename existing categories. For non-Christians, having every religious related transaction categorized under "Church" is annoying. thanks

I understand that if Mint allows renaming of categories, the "compare" feature becomes not very useful. Maybe Mint could just concentrate on more general category names that would be more inclusive.

[Damon]

While I doubt that categorization will ever be 100%, using labels to correct information should be more useful down the road (in spending trends, etc.). We are also working on more robust categorization choices now, so customers can expect some better choices for re-categorization in the future.

[kskistad]

My credit card merchant (Chase) shows "Automatic Payment - Thank You" and Mint Names this "Automatic Payment", which is... ok because the category it picks is "Credit Card Payment" which is good enough.

But I decided to edit the name/category, to change the description to "Chase Automatic Payment". First I searched for all "Automatic Payment" across accounts- it only found 5 transactions, which looks correct. Then I started to edit the default rule, and change the name- just before I checked the box to apply this rule, I noticed it said "...change 48 similar transactions". Huh? 48? I only have 5 that it found in a search... Of the 5 results that returned in the search (all identical), I click a different one and clicked the the name/cateogry button. Now it said "...47..." I tried another one of the five transactions, and now it just said "...similar transactions..." without giving a number...

Needless to say, I canceled because I didn't want it to change the name of any other transaction that I didn't know about.

Is this behavior by design, or a bug?

[tphillip]

My bank labels all it automatic loan payments and such with the same name. Many chain merchants also use similar names for all their branches/gas stations/restaurants/etc.

As options, I'd like to see:

The ability to control how much of the string of the transaction is matched. That way people can have all "Burger Kings" named the same regardless of location or keep all "Kwik Fills" separate for tracking
Rename transactions based on name and amount. To track transactions that my bank assigns the same name.

[Jeff S]

Please consider the following additions to categorization:

The following subcategory should be listed under "Home" or "Shopping":

Household (e.g. non-food grocery items like paper towels, toilet paper, toiletries, etc.)

Thanks

Jeff

[dayaMint]

First I admit I love using Mint and it is a wonderful tool.

A simple example is, you can make Business Travels (that Includes Air/Train/Bus, Hotel Stay, Rental Car, Meals etc). Most of them they are reimbursed if you work for a company. And if you are the one paying for it, you still want to budget it.

At the same time, as a person and family you make travel plans that fits into your budget. They are not reimbursable and you want to control it.

Also some families budget travel plans for the whole year. And we may be saving it for every month or be repaying it like a loan towards the travel.

Glad to know that you are working on it.

Thanks,
Daya

[cstein]

While I like the idea of adding the ability to add Top Level categories, what I would really like is something I'm calling Super Categories. For me they are
Income
Regular Expenses
Living Expenses
Optional Expenses
Debt Payment

These would allow for me to aggregate the more specific categories. So for example the Bills/Utilities would go into the Regular Expenses and Entertainment might go in Optional Expenses while getting gas or fixing the car might go in the Living Expenses. For me this is the easiest way to quickly look at what I'm spending. I'd also like to be able to look at charts with these categories.

One way I thought of to add these without doing too much on Mint's part is to modify how the Tags work.

First allow the overview charts and the budget to be done based on tags not just the categories (now you can see tags in overview but not any charts of them).

The second thing is to allow the ability to assign all of a certain category to a tag. So for example all bills/utilities can automatically receive my Regular Expense tag.

This way I could group transactions how I wanted and budget, plan and view based on those.

[arcarsination]

While I like the idea of adding the ability to add Top Level categories, what I would really like is something I'm calling Super Categories. For me they are
Income
Regular Expenses
Living Expenses
Optional Expenses
Debt Payment

These would allow for me to aggregate the more specific categories. So for example the Bills/Utilities would go into the Regular Expenses and Entertainment might go in Optional Expenses while getting gas or fixing the car might go in the Living Expenses. For me this is the easiest way to quickly look at what I'm spending. I'd also like to be able to look at charts with these categories.

One way I thought of to add these without doing too much on Mint's part is to modify how the Tags work.

First allow the overview charts and the budget to be done based on tags not just the categories (now you can see tags in overview but not any charts of them).

The second thing is to allow the ability to assign all of a certain category to a tag. So for example all bills/utilities can automatically receive my Regular Expense tag.

This way I could group transactions how I wanted and budget, plan and view based on those.

This is exactly the problem I'm having now. I got excited today when I logged on and saw the new fancy stuff. Sadly, the ability to create rules for tags was not a part of it.

All that it seems that we need Mint to do is either, A) allow for rules for tags so that they can be automatically assigned, just like the rules for categories or B) allow for the customization of parent categories. By this I mean being able to put all Bills/Utilities, Groceries, Auto Insurance, etc. (whatever one wants) into their own unique parent category called "Living Expenses" for example. This would make more sense than only letting you edit child categories within the predetermined parent categories.

This feature would help me (and cstein) immensely and is the only thing I can think of that would better the already amazing experience of Mint. Thank you so much for this helpful piece of software.

[ohshazbot]

My issue isn't necessarily with the categorization. I know that I could filter a certain transaction type to do it, but the 2 things preventing me from doing it are the description filtering and the filters themselves.

1. So this is my main issue. I will a frequent situation as an example. We have a Gap Visa card, which I made a payment on. I made the payment through my banks bill pay service. The details state it as "FOR: GAP DUAL CARD ONLINE PMT ACH". But the Description, which seems to be the only thing I can filter on, is just Gap. I could say treat all of these transactions as credit card payments, but AFAIK that will also affect purchases at Gap stores.

2. The other issue is the filtering. I know you try to make this as user friendly as possible, and that's a good thing. But maybe if you allowed "power users" to set up there own, distinct filters. Even so far as letting them use a regex or some custom filters that work across numerous fields. Maybe allow the option to do filters based on the details and transaction amount.

I guess what I'm getting at, is in your pursuit of making this user friendly (which I am in no way saying is a bad thing) you're being the possibilities for power users to try new ideas, which you could eventually roll into the official build.

But as it stands now, I'm extremely happy with what you are providing, I'm just letting you know some things that I think would make it better.