When to use a tag instead of a category
Co-founder of Penge · Published 16 September 2026 · 6 min read
A category says what kind of spending it was, and every payment gets exactly one. A tag is the second label you reach for when the question you want answered later cuts across categories: what did the holiday cost, what did the bathroom cost, how much of the shared bill was really mine.
Key takeaways
- Every transaction has exactly one category. It can carry as many tags as you like.
- A category answers what the money was. A tag answers which trip, which project, or whose half it was.
- A tag has a type: a trip or an event, something you split, something that should not count, or just for organizing. The type sets the starting share and groups your tag statistics.
- A tag can count at a share. Put your half of a shared bill on a 50 per cent tag and only half reaches your statistics and budgets, while the transaction list still shows the full amount.
- Tag totals can add up to more than you spent that month, because a transaction with two tags counts in full under both.
What is the difference between a tag and a category?
A category is the one label every transaction must have, and your budgets and breakdowns are built on it: Groceries, Flight, Rent. A tag is an extra label that cuts across categories, and one transaction can carry several. Use a category for what the money was, and a tag for which trip, project or shared cost it belonged to.
Categories are a division. Every payment lands in exactly one, so the category totals add up to what you spent and nothing is counted twice. That is what makes a budget possible: a limit on Groceries means something because no other category is quietly holding some of your food shopping.
Tags do not divide anything. They are questions you ask across the division, which is why one transaction can answer several at once. The same restaurant bill can be food spending, part of a holiday, and half yours.
| Category | Tag | |
|---|---|---|
| How many per transaction | Exactly one | As many as you want |
| The question it answers | What kind of spending was this? | What did this trip, project or shared cost come to? |
| What it drives | Budgets, the overview and the category breakdowns | Its own breakdown, and how much of the amount counts |
| Where it comes from | Suggested automatically, corrected by you | Always you, or a rule you wrote |
When is a tag the right tool?
Whenever the thing you want a number for is not a kind of spending. Three cases cover most of it:
- A trip. The flights sit in Flight, the dinners in Restaurant and café, the room in Hotel and accommodations. No category can tell you what the week cost. One tag can, and it keeps working for the next trip and the one after.
- A shared household. Some payments are split and some are not. Tag the shared ones and count them at your share, and your own spending stops looking twice as big as it is.
- A project with a budget of its own. A bathroom is tools in one category, tiles in another and a plumber in a third. The tag is the only thing that adds them up, and it keeps counting for as long as the job takes.
There is one case that looks like a tag and is not: a single payment that covered two different things, such as a supermarket run that included a birthday present. That wants a split, which moves part of the amount into a second category. There is a full guide in One receipt, two categories.
What do the tag types do?
The type answers what the tag is for, and you pick it when you create the tag. It decides the share of the amount that counts: something you split starts at half, something that should not count is set to nothing, and a trip or a plain tag counts in full until you say otherwise. It also decides which section the tag sits under in your statistics.
| Type | What it is for | What counts |
|---|---|---|
| A trip or an event | A holiday, a wedding, a festival: one stretch of spending across many categories. | All of it, until you set a share yourself. |
| Something I split | Costs you share with someone, where only part of the amount is really yours. | Half, until you move the slider. |
| Something that should not count | Money that only passed through you: an expense you were paid back for, a purchase made for someone else. | Nothing. |
| Just for organizing | A plain label for anything you want to be able to pull up later. | All of it, until you set a share yourself. |
Nothing about the type is locked. A trip tag can carry a share if half the trip was paid by someone else, and a split tag can sit at any percentage rather than fifty. The type is the starting point and the filing, not a rule.
The filing is the part that pays off quietly. On the statistics screen the tag breakdown puts your favourites first and then one section per type, headed Trips, Shared, Not counted and Other tags, each with its own total. Without opening anything you can see what your travel year came to, and what the shared side of the household came to, next to each other.
What does counting at a share actually change?
The share is a percentage on the tag, and it is the part of the amount that reaches your statistics, your budgets, your overview and your widgets. Put your half of a 900 kr dinner on a 50 per cent tag and 450 kr counts. The transaction list, the account balance and your bank all still show 900 kr.
That distinction is the whole feature. A share is not an edit and not a correction. The payment stays exactly as your bank reported it, and the only thing that changes is the arithmetic your own numbers are built on. It is why a shared household can be honest about both figures at once: the full amount that left the account, and the part of it that was yours to carry.
Good to know
- Two tags with a share on the same transaction multiply. 50 per cent and 50 per cent leaves 25 per cent counted.
- A share on a bank account multiplies with a share on a tag. A half-share joint account plus a half-share tag leaves a quarter.
- The statistics screen has an Apply modifiers toggle, on by default. Turning it off shows the full amounts again on that screen.
- A tag with a share shows the percentage in brackets after the name in the transaction list, 100 per cent included.
Should the share go on the tag or the account?
Put it on the account when the whole account is shared, and on a tag when only some payments are. A joint account you both pay into is the account case, and you never have to tag anything on it. A card that is yours, used now and then for something shared, is the tag case.
Most couples end up using both, because most couples have both kinds of money. The account share handles the rent and the electricity without a thought, and the tag handles the restaurant you happened to pay for. The step by step version is in your share of a joint account, and the wider question of how to organize money together is in How to manage money as a couple.
How to read tag totals without being misled
Tag totals are not a division of your month, and reading them as one is the mistake worth avoiding. A transaction with two tags counts in full under both, so the sections can add up to more than you spent. That is correct rather than broken: the trip total and the shared total are answers to two different questions, and the same dinner belongs in both.
Categories are the breakdown that adds up to everything. Tags are overlapping questions. When you want to know what a month cost, read the categories. When you want to know what a thing cost, read the tag.
Tagging without doing it one at a time
Tagging six payments from a trip by hand is fine. Tagging sixty is not, so most of the work can be avoided:
- Swipe a transaction row to the left for Add tag. That is two taps per payment, without opening anything.
- Press and hold a row to select several, then tap Tag along the bottom and pick one. If every selected transaction already has that tag, tapping it takes the tag off all of them.
- A categorization rule can add tags as well as a category, so a shop you always want tagged is tagged from then on, including the ones that arrive next month.
- Splitting a transaction copies its tags onto every part, so a split you tag stays tagged.
- Reserved transactions cannot be tagged. Wait until they clear and come through properly.
How Penge does it
Penge runs on iPhone, connects to more than 2300 banks in over 30 countries, and picks the category for you when it is sure. Tags are the layer no automation can guess: nothing in a bank feed says that these six payments were one week in Lisbon. You add the tag, choose what it is for, and the statistics screen groups your tags by type from then on, with a share counted wherever the app works out a number.
Get a full overview with Penge
Connect your bank and let the app categorize and budget automatically.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a transaction have more than one tag?
- Yes, as many as you like. That is the difference from a category, which is exactly one per transaction. The same dinner can sit in Restaurant and café and carry both a holiday tag and a shared tag at once.
- Does a tag with a share change the amount my bank shows?
- No. A budgeting app that reads your bank only reads it, so the payment and the balance are untouched. The share changes what your statistics, budgets and overview count, and nothing else.
- Why do my tag totals add up to more than I spent?
- Because a transaction with two tags counts in full under both. Tags overlap on purpose, so their totals are not a division of the month. Categories are the breakdown that adds up to everything you spent.
- Can I set a budget on a tag?
- No. Budgets are built on categories, since those are the labels that never double count. A tag gives you a running total for the period you are looking at, which is what a trip or a renovation actually needs.