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EMPLOYEE
I’m
excited
Does Mint support creating custom categories?
Yes, as of this morning, you can design your categories to fit lifestyle, you can create budgets against those categories and you can use spending trends to analyze where your money is going. Please check out the site and give us your feedback.
Promoted
Responses
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I’m
Frustrated and sad.
3I love the Mint look. It's tasty. And great UI makes me want to use software. But not being able to customize the categories myself? Damn. Unacceptable. I spent a lot of time getting set up only to discover this. I guess I'm back to my offline solutions. No matter how shiney the UI is, if I have to re-learn how to manage my finances to use your software, then you are asking too much of me. Too bad. -
I’m
confused
3As I recall the initial question had to do with "Eating Out". This is on the Mint Chart of Accounts as "Entertainment". Then you pick one of several sub headings, such as Fast Food, Groceries(?), or Restaurants. Be aware there are two Entertainment Accounts! One after "Education" and one after "Financial". It would be good if these two accounts were combined as it is confusing.
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I’m
hopeful this gets attention
3would love to see this added... we all have different lives and different money habits which are reflected in our categorization scheme. The inability to create custom parent categories forces us to take our differentiated lifestyles and press them into a cookie cutter mold.
This obvious lack of functionality diminishes the brilliance of this tool and furthermore discourages proper money management habits. Moreover, this goes against the fundamental goal of this site. -
I’m
disappointed
3The top post says that creating custom categories, is now available "as of this morning". Please look at if for yourself, nothing to be excited about because it's not true. My hope is that this problem will get truly resolved. Until then.....
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4One more voice calling for ACTUALLY customizable categories (i.e. full control over creating and deleting parent categories as well as sub-categories).
I understand that Mint is free because they can sell the info they collect on their user's spending, which is probably based on the categories that they set up (which would have to be consistent across users for the data to be valuable), or at least use that data to attract advertisers. But I would definitely PAY for Mint if only to have the combined advantages of Quicken customizability and Mint instant transaction updates! -
3I put my software architect hat on and tried to come up with a solution that wouldn't require changes to Categories. I think this might solve the problem for some people at least.
Create a new feature called a Budget View
Allow the users to create as many Budget Views as they want.
A Budget View can contain any number of Budget Groups.
A Budget Group can contain any number of Budgets (these being the current Budgets for Mint catagories).
A Budget can only appear in a single Budget Group within a Budget View
Not all Budget items need to be included in a Budget Views groups.
When displaying a Budget View, show the total budgeted amount along with its current levels and also show the Budget Groups with their composited values and progress.
Mint could provide a Default Budget View that contains a separate Budget Group for each Budget Item. This would appear the same as the current Budget that Mint displays. Mint could also come up with some other useful Budget Views that they could provide for everyones use.
Users such as StevenRomanoff could solve their problem two different ways:
1) Create a Budget View that includes only Budget Groups that are Reimbursable
2) Create a Main Budget View that include a Budget Group that includes all of the Budget Items that are Reimbursable.
My Main Budget View would contain:
Commited Expenses
Long Term Savings
Short Term Savings
Fun Money
One thing I like about this solution over modifying the Categories is that we would be able to look at our Budgets from various different perspectives depending upon what we are trying to analize at any given time. -
4Jami,
Here is the basic problem that I have with using the Parent catagories as they are:
(Just an example)
I have several different expenses that are related to my Automobile.
* Car Payment
* Insurance
* Gas
* Tolls
* Expenses (Car wash, oil change)
* Repairs
* Although these are all Automobile expenses, they are budgeted for in very different ways:
* Car Payment is a fixed monthly expense.
* Insurance is a fixed annual payment. Mint handles this alright with an issue that I will explain later.
* Gas and Tolls are estimated with the hope that I will stay under budget in each month. They do not roll over.
* Expenses change from month to month and I need to estimate how much they will be over the course of the year.
* Repairs may or may not ever happen. I estimate an amount annually just to be ready and because something always comes up.
Here are the problems with this:
1) My irregular expenses need to be tracked somewhere so that I know how much I should have set aside. Right now I need to go through each Budget each month and calculate this. The alternative would be to create another account and transfer money back and forth into it manually.
2) In order to set budgets for this stuff, I have to have a Budget for Every Single one of these Catagories separately. Logically they really could all be tracked in one Budget such as Irregular Auto Expenses or Short Term Savings (which would catch from other unrelated Catagories). I end up with too many budget items to watch.
3) Roll Over budgets show a negative in the Budget line. I have no way to know how I am doing during a given month.
4) I have to add up all of the negative numbers and the "Every Few Month" budgets every month to find out how much I need to have in my account to cover the expenses. It is very difficult to know if any of the Budgets are running under or over.
I follow a budgeting plan that really breaks things down much more simple at the top level.
* Commited Expenses - Predictable regular expenses (Mostly bills)
* Retirement - 401K - I don't actually track this as a budget item since it is withheld from my check
* Long Term Savings - Anything that I am saving up for that may span years or could at least be put off if I need to. I can use a Savings or Investment account for these since they do not need to turn around often)
* Short Term Savings - Estimated (Auto or Home Repairs, Vacations) and irregular expenses (Life and Auto Ins). Some people may use a Savings account for this. I just try to keep a buffer in my Checking account. Since many of these things are wild guesses, it helps to keep them budgeted together. That way if one is over and another one under, they will balance each other out.
* Fun Money - Bar tabs, dates, movies, CDs, BluRays, anything I want to blow money on. This is the easiest area to cut my budget if I end up over budget with an unexpected expense.
With this style of budgeting, I know exactly how much I need to have in each of my accounts.
I only have to track 4 Parent budgets (since I don't track Retirement). The individual items can be tracked by drilling down into the budget.
One problem here is that I would really like to be able to set the children budgets and have them rolled up into one Parent Budget that I could drill into to see where I am under and over. I've tried messing with this by creating Budgets for some child items and then creating another budget for the Parent that I expected to only cover the transactions that were not covered by a specific child budget. Mint doesn't work this way which is OK.
I can see the percentages that are going to each of these areas. With the budget I follow I am suppose to try to budget a certain percentage to each of these areas
I tried using Tags for this early on but couldn't figure out how to take advantage of them. I wanted to Tag a catagory, but it appeared that the Tags were for transactions. Even if I could Tag a catagory, I couldn't see how to create a Budget for a Tag. I ended up abandoning this idea.
Right now I am stuck. Mint still is the best option that I have found, but I really need to budget in a very unnatural way for me.
There may be other ways for the Developement Team to mitigate the problems with not being able to control the Parent Catagories, but that seems like the most straight forward way to handle things. -
I’m
dissapointed
3Looks you still can't manage parent categories. Complete deal breaker for financial management. Don't force us into how you THINK we manage our finances.
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3It does not look like this issue has been addressed.
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I’m
frustrated
4Parent categories are very important. I hope Mint resolves this issue soon or I will be deleting this service.
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3Me too! Same dang thing, exactly.
Service bug for sure!
***Please fix this bug***
Thank you! -
I’m
very frustrated!
4Yes, you may be able to customize sub-categories but not being able to make your own "parent" category and then sub-categories under that category is a deal breaker.
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I’m
very frustrated!
4Yes, you may be able to customize sub-categories but not being able to make your own "parent" category and then sub-categories under that category is a deal breaker.Comment
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2I want to create a parent category
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This is still a BIG request of mine! Please please please make parent categories available to be customized.
I would pay for a premium version of Mint if this was included in the premium version. -
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I agree completely. I certainly be willing to pay for such a benefit. I need to create my own categories in order for this to work for me.
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1I want to add parent category and can't figure out how. I do know hwo to create sub categories but I want a parent category.
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You are not able to create parent categories on sub categories. it seems a recent revision has made even this feature not work.
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I just tried to create a sub-category under Mint's parent category and it wouldn't work! I could do this before though. What's the trick?
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Same here. I can create it, and it says it has been added, but then it is not usable in any of the lists.
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It seems as if you can only create 1 or two sub-categories per parent category. If you add a new one, that may delete past sub-categories that you have created. This SUCKS.
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1I'm having the same problem of creating new categories. i can go in and create and save a new category but it will not show up as an option. When I go back in to try to create the category again I can see it in the list of customer categories.
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I believe you are trying to create "sub-categories" and not parent categories, yes?
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3Me too! Same dang thing, exactly.
Service bug for sure!
***Please fix this bug***
Thank you! -
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1Doesn't work for me.
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2The message from Mint says this is answered and fixed and to check out the site. I still don't see where on the site you can add custom parent categories.
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I’m
frustrated
1I too need the ability to manage parent categories. The parent categories need to make sense to my wife and I. Mint's are close, but we need categories that Mint does not supply and we do not use some that Mint does supply.
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I’m
frustrated
4Parent categories are very important. I hope Mint resolves this issue soon or I will be deleting this service.
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3It does not look like this issue has been addressed.
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I’m
dissapointed
3Looks you still can't manage parent categories. Complete deal breaker for financial management. Don't force us into how you THINK we manage our finances.
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I’m
Disappointed too!
1Same thing here. I like to track my wife cash withdrawals separately from my own. The only way i could do this was to create subcategories in uncategorized
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1I vote for the ability to edit parent categories also, but I'm guessing that the reason they don't allow it is that then they can't auto-assign based on downloaded transactions
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1I posted this question, looks like its already been looked at; this is far from answered.
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1The Catagories really need to be fully customizable including the parent catagories. I would also like to be able to move some of the pre-existing ones to different parents if we can't simply delete them.
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2Agreed:
Fully customizable categories is a must! That should include the ability to delete Mint's suggested categories.
Not sure why this issue is flagged as 'Solved' -
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2Aaron's response is just funny and vague at best. Sounded like a "canned marketing response", and didn't separate "parent categories" or "subcategories" ... most everyone on this thread wants to be able to create "parent categories" - you can already create subs. VERY frustrating that this is 1) not available, and 2) not viewed as a valuable and "expected" feature.
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I’m
frustrated
2Agreed! Fully customizable categories is a must, until this capability is there, Mint just does not work for us.
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I’m
baffled
1Because there seems to be so little active participation of Mint employees on this site... I suspect Mint is in financial trouble, or has been deemed unprofitable.
Shame, good product. -
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I have already closed my account, with lack of support and matching features to the Quicken software there was no point. I cannot find anything unrivaled by mint.com for the mobile platform however.
It behooves me as to why there is not already a desktop/mobile or better cloud system for personal finance like mint.com this is ridiculous. I will continue to use my quicken 2010, I see no point in upgrading to 2011 when all they have is more broken and useless features like mint. -
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I’m
frustrated
I am totally shocked that as advanced as Quicken is, they haven't seen the need to enable the ability to create custom categories. Everybody's mind works differently - Quicken's flexibility allows for the creation of usable budgets. Mint needs to catch up with the parent.
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1I can't use this program without being able to develop my own basic categories; the headings don't mean anything (at least to me) when applied to my expenses. Is there no way to re-name or create top-level categories?
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I’m
dissapointed in Mint
1I wonder how many thousands of people have asked for this? I wonder how many have left Mint for a program that works for them?
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What other programs do you suggest that are cloud based and free?
Thanks! -
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I’m
annoyed
1I just joined Mint and within 10 minutes ran up against this bug that doesn't allow me to add a parent category. I'd also like to delete a few that don't apply to me.
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I’m
ANNOYED!
2I want to add a PARENT CATEGORY so that I can keep all of my reimbursable expenses from work in a separate area. Please add this functionality!
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EMPLOYEE
1Hello all,
I wanted to confirm that we've seen your requests for the ability to edit parent categories. Unfortunately, this isn't a small task. The primary category for a transaction drives many aspects of the product, like alerts and trends.
I'd be interested in learning if you feel that we are missing key categories that could be used broadly? If so, please post below and I'll share with the team.
It'd also be interesting to know if you are using categories in a different way than what we intended. For example, is anyone tagging a transaction that cuts across the current category structure?
Thanks!
jami- view 11 more comments
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See the proposal from Poorman65 a few comments down. The Idea of customizable category views sounds very useful.
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I have a second home and would like a separate catagory for my primary residence
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4Jami,
Here is the basic problem that I have with using the Parent catagories as they are:
(Just an example)
I have several different expenses that are related to my Automobile.
* Car Payment
* Insurance
* Gas
* Tolls
* Expenses (Car wash, oil change)
* Repairs
* Although these are all Automobile expenses, they are budgeted for in very different ways:
* Car Payment is a fixed monthly expense.
* Insurance is a fixed annual payment. Mint handles this alright with an issue that I will explain later.
* Gas and Tolls are estimated with the hope that I will stay under budget in each month. They do not roll over.
* Expenses change from month to month and I need to estimate how much they will be over the course of the year.
* Repairs may or may not ever happen. I estimate an amount annually just to be ready and because something always comes up.
Here are the problems with this:
1) My irregular expenses need to be tracked somewhere so that I know how much I should have set aside. Right now I need to go through each Budget each month and calculate this. The alternative would be to create another account and transfer money back and forth into it manually.
2) In order to set budgets for this stuff, I have to have a Budget for Every Single one of these Catagories separately. Logically they really could all be tracked in one Budget such as Irregular Auto Expenses or Short Term Savings (which would catch from other unrelated Catagories). I end up with too many budget items to watch.
3) Roll Over budgets show a negative in the Budget line. I have no way to know how I am doing during a given month.
4) I have to add up all of the negative numbers and the "Every Few Month" budgets every month to find out how much I need to have in my account to cover the expenses. It is very difficult to know if any of the Budgets are running under or over.
I follow a budgeting plan that really breaks things down much more simple at the top level.
* Commited Expenses - Predictable regular expenses (Mostly bills)
* Retirement - 401K - I don't actually track this as a budget item since it is withheld from my check
* Long Term Savings - Anything that I am saving up for that may span years or could at least be put off if I need to. I can use a Savings or Investment account for these since they do not need to turn around often)
* Short Term Savings - Estimated (Auto or Home Repairs, Vacations) and irregular expenses (Life and Auto Ins). Some people may use a Savings account for this. I just try to keep a buffer in my Checking account. Since many of these things are wild guesses, it helps to keep them budgeted together. That way if one is over and another one under, they will balance each other out.
* Fun Money - Bar tabs, dates, movies, CDs, BluRays, anything I want to blow money on. This is the easiest area to cut my budget if I end up over budget with an unexpected expense.
With this style of budgeting, I know exactly how much I need to have in each of my accounts.
I only have to track 4 Parent budgets (since I don't track Retirement). The individual items can be tracked by drilling down into the budget.
One problem here is that I would really like to be able to set the children budgets and have them rolled up into one Parent Budget that I could drill into to see where I am under and over. I've tried messing with this by creating Budgets for some child items and then creating another budget for the Parent that I expected to only cover the transactions that were not covered by a specific child budget. Mint doesn't work this way which is OK.
I can see the percentages that are going to each of these areas. With the budget I follow I am suppose to try to budget a certain percentage to each of these areas
I tried using Tags for this early on but couldn't figure out how to take advantage of them. I wanted to Tag a catagory, but it appeared that the Tags were for transactions. Even if I could Tag a catagory, I couldn't see how to create a Budget for a Tag. I ended up abandoning this idea.
Right now I am stuck. Mint still is the best option that I have found, but I really need to budget in a very unnatural way for me.
There may be other ways for the Developement Team to mitigate the problems with not being able to control the Parent Catagories, but that seems like the most straight forward way to handle things.-
Thanks for posting that. I'm just starting to get organized in Mint, and have come up with a budgeting model very like yours - big buckets for known, regular expenses, stashes for intermittent expenses (car repairs, emergencies etc.) and for short term savings and "real" savings. It's a relief to see that my model is not so out-there!
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3I put my software architect hat on and tried to come up with a solution that wouldn't require changes to Categories. I think this might solve the problem for some people at least.
Create a new feature called a Budget View
Allow the users to create as many Budget Views as they want.
A Budget View can contain any number of Budget Groups.
A Budget Group can contain any number of Budgets (these being the current Budgets for Mint catagories).
A Budget can only appear in a single Budget Group within a Budget View
Not all Budget items need to be included in a Budget Views groups.
When displaying a Budget View, show the total budgeted amount along with its current levels and also show the Budget Groups with their composited values and progress.
Mint could provide a Default Budget View that contains a separate Budget Group for each Budget Item. This would appear the same as the current Budget that Mint displays. Mint could also come up with some other useful Budget Views that they could provide for everyones use.
Users such as StevenRomanoff could solve their problem two different ways:
1) Create a Budget View that includes only Budget Groups that are Reimbursable
2) Create a Main Budget View that include a Budget Group that includes all of the Budget Items that are Reimbursable.
My Main Budget View would contain:
Commited Expenses
Long Term Savings
Short Term Savings
Fun Money
One thing I like about this solution over modifying the Categories is that we would be able to look at our Budgets from various different perspectives depending upon what we are trying to analize at any given time. -
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1My issue is very similar to the business expenses. I have a rental unit and I would like to tack all cost associated with the unit under a separate category. I know that under income there is a Rental Income but I would prefer to not track this with my income. I would like to have a separate category to have repairs, travel, income and while the unit is not rented I have to pay utilities I would like to all tracked in one category awa from my monthly expenses. This is the best way I can figure out to help with taxes at the end of the year for and whether or not I am losing money.
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I am not sure I understand what you are referring to. Are you not sure how to set up a budget within Mint? Have you visited the "Budget" tab within your Mint account (https://wwws.mint.com/planning.event)?
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I think it's safe to assume Sufigirl is referring to how to "create custom categories", which is the topic of this discussion thread . . .
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I want to thank all of you for posting such detailed responses on your speciifc use case and what you'd like to see. I am happy to share these responses with the product team for consideration (no promises).
Best,
Jami- view 2 more comments
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Another need for category creation--two separate businesses in the family, and the need for "business services mom" and "business services dad" so tax time is easier.
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RELIGIOUS
Religious is a big category you missed. Different from "donations" - would cover activities that distinctly aren't "entertainment", "travel", "bills", etc. - like payment for church/temple activities, attending religious seminars, etc.
I guarantee you I'm not the only one who will use this category. 50 years ago, it would have been as obvious as the rest you've put in. Believe it or not, about 1/5 of the population still has a very active religious life, and they invest enough of their activity there for it to constitute an unmistakable "category" of their financial lives. -
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I’m
frustrated
1I need a cloud computing personal/home business solution. I have been using Quicken for so many years I can't remember. Over the years, I find increasing need to work my personal finances at various locations, not just in my home office. I was excited to hear about Mint. Your category structure is a complete show stopper: too restrictive. I'd be happy to pay what I now pay for Quicken for a cloud system. Someone will develop it. I'd like it to be Intuit. If not, I'll switch to whomever does it, and Intuit will lose me as a customer.
BTW my ideal would be for the cloud system to have the same functionality as Quicken Home and Business does presently. I tried Quickbooks. It's for bookkeepers and accountants, not for me, a consumer with several small business interests.-
Did you even find a cloud computing solution? How so you like Quicken, other than the lack of cloudness? Can you easily integrate your business and home finances?
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YES! I'd pay as well. Especially with an Andriod app where I can see my categories on my andriod.
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I’m
frustrated
I'd like to delete subcats I don't use. Completely agree with the other comments.... pls make Quicken for the cloud. I am no longer able to use Quicken on my work computer and too difficult to track everything in my Mac at home. I would LOVE to be able to access my Quicken account from anywhere in the cloud.
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I’m
disappointed
I don't see why this question is "marked as answered." I am excited about the possibilities of Mint, and have trusted the Quicken brand for almost 20 years; however, I don't feel that the company response to addressing the "editing parent categories" question is sufficient. I see the response as of 18 days ago that "this is hard" but with no roadmap or timeline to resolution. Please increase your communication on this topic - 18 days + "question answered" is not sufficient. Give us a plan! I, with it seems many others, will move to a competitor, despite the two decade loyalty. Thank you.
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I’m
frustrated
Having the ability to create my main categories and edit others is a must for me. It should not be that difficult to do. I currently use mvelopes, but am looking for other solutions and would rather use Mint, if I could get my own main expense categories and be able to allocate my income into my individual categories (envelopes) so I can see what i have left in each easily.
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I’m
confused
1First of all, I don't see Aaron Forth's question. But going along with the thread of this discussion, the ability to create categories and then sub-categories is basic to the use of Quicken as a finacial tool. I know what I want to call my categories, and don't need to have suggestions. While I like the idea of an on-line financial tool, it's useless in this form. I want to be able to view reports so I can read and use them. Frankly, I can't use this as a reliable tool, and don't see how anyone else can either. The length of this discussion and lack of a fix is unbelievable.
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I’m
dead serious!
1I have reported this question as inappropriate - because it is NOT "answered" in any way! I would encourage all that are following this string to do the same. SOMEONE at that point may see it and get an answer for us!-
I agree. Looking at the timeframe that this has been discussed, and the number of contributors, either a fix is not something that can be done, or since this is a no-cost service, there are not enough resources. I use Quicken as many do, and find that creating categories and sub-categories is very simple. I don't think we'll see a fix.
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1After reading the comments, especially poorman65, i really cant' believe that someone designed a software that one cannot add their own categories, like Quicken does, especially since Mint is based on Quicken. Since I cannot do this, I will remove all my accounts. If it ever happens, please let me know.
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4One more voice calling for ACTUALLY customizable categories (i.e. full control over creating and deleting parent categories as well as sub-categories).
I understand that Mint is free because they can sell the info they collect on their user's spending, which is probably based on the categories that they set up (which would have to be consistent across users for the data to be valuable), or at least use that data to attract advertisers. But I would definitely PAY for Mint if only to have the combined advantages of Quicken customizability and Mint instant transaction updates! -
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I’m
Confused
1This is frustrating. I would to be able to separate out different business and different child care expenses. Why should that be hard. I never go to fast food. Why should I have too? There doesn't seem to be a category for my mortgage. What's up with that?
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The cateory for Mortae is under "Home" as a sub cateory.
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I’m
frustrated
1Poorman65 has an excellent description of the problem with not allowing custom top-level categories. I've also discovered the benefit of grouping fixed or relatively fixed payments together. I also budget based on different categories. So I group all my apartment expenses together: rent, electric, water, furniture rental. Currently Mint has separate categories for rent and utilities.
Right now I'm using Yodlee for my money management, after signing up to Mint and struggling specifically with this issue. Even Yodlee isn't ideal because they don't let you add top-level categories. But at least they let you re-name them and hide categories you don't need. This provides an easy hack where you can re-name the top-level categories to names that need to be related to the original names.
if I could use it, I'd prefer Mint because I like your interface over Yodlee's, and Yodlee currently isn't supporting rollover budget accounts. But until Mint adds the ability to define your own budgeting hierarchy, whether through hiding and renaming or through true category management like Quicken, then I have to stay with Yodlee. -
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I’m
disappointed
3The top post says that creating custom categories, is now available "as of this morning". Please look at if for yourself, nothing to be excited about because it's not true. My hope is that this problem will get truly resolved. Until then.....
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yes, and that particular post was made over 3 years ago. check the date. clearly not.
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It was a lie then, and it's still not available now, that I know.
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I’m
hopeful this gets attention
3would love to see this added... we all have different lives and different money habits which are reflected in our categorization scheme. The inability to create custom parent categories forces us to take our differentiated lifestyles and press them into a cookie cutter mold.
This obvious lack of functionality diminishes the brilliance of this tool and furthermore discourages proper money management habits. Moreover, this goes against the fundamental goal of this site. -
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I’m
confused
3As I recall the initial question had to do with "Eating Out". This is on the Mint Chart of Accounts as "Entertainment". Then you pick one of several sub headings, such as Fast Food, Groceries(?), or Restaurants. Be aware there are two Entertainment Accounts! One after "Education" and one after "Financial". It would be good if these two accounts were combined as it is confusing.
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I’m
sorry that this doesn't work
1Looking for customizable categories. Dealbreaker for me if impossible. Need to be able to delete Mint's default categories.
Looks like a great system otherwise. Wish I could use it. -
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2Since Mint isnt going to fix this issue, can anyone recommend another service that allows us to create our own categories (and is also cloud?)
Thanks!
Aug-
Trevor23 said Yodlee.
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1I vote for fully customizable categories within including creating new parents. Why not?
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I’m
looking for a better solution
2Another vote for fully customized categories; new parents, delete current and new parents, new children, delete current and new children.
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1Can you at least let us delete the categories you created? I will never use some of them and it just clutters the drop downs.
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Or hide them
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I’m
Frustrated and sad.
3I love the Mint look. It's tasty. And great UI makes me want to use software. But not being able to customize the categories myself? Damn. Unacceptable. I spent a lot of time getting set up only to discover this. I guess I'm back to my offline solutions. No matter how shiney the UI is, if I have to re-learn how to manage my finances to use your software, then you are asking too much of me. Too bad.
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2The "solution" of adding additional standard parent categories is unworkable. There is no way to come up with a list that will cover everyone's needs. Customizable parent categories are the only way to go. Truly amazing that this still hasn't been implemented.
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Definitely!
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I’m
ticked
Well, my membership in Mint lasted about 18 minutes due to this issue. I will delete my account and pay the $90 for Quicken (2008 version that I had used previously has been discontinued).
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What version did you pay $90 for? I haven't seen that one. Does it do personal and business?
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Me too! I can't work with a system that forces such ridiculous restrictions. Anyone have any other cloud-based solutions? Why is this so impossible? Quickbooks online let's you customize everything!
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I’m
disappointed
I am so surprised that I can't create my own categories...May have to chalk up a wasted hour setting up and cancel..............
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1Yes...absurd. Also, the answer at the top of the thread is "Yes MINT can now do custom categories" but no explanation how to do it
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1I'm with everyone else here - this is a deal breaker for me. I will not be using Mint for my finances as the standard categories as presented don't work well for me.
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Despite my earlier post I did figure out a way to sub categorize transactions. The sub categories provided are actually rather detailed.
Simply click on the transaction tab. Then, under the CATEGORY column click on the drop down menu. If you then move the cursor over the expense item the sub categories appear.An option to add/edit categories is also available at the bottom of the drop down menu.
Hope that helps. -
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I don't think most of us care about the sub-categories. We know those are customizable. It's the main categories. The categories that show up in the charts, etc. It's absurd and totally unhelpful that those cannot be customizable. I don't care about the sub-categories!
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Despite my earlier post I did figure out a way to sub categorize transactions. The sub categories provided are actually rather detailed.
Simply click on the transaction tab. Then, under the CATEGORY column click on the drop down menu. If you then move the cursor over the expense item the sub categories appear.An option to add/edit categories is also available at the bottom of the drop down menu.
Hope that helps -
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I’m
frustrated
Mint doesn't appear to allow me to customize more than one sub-category....am I the only one finding this? I created a sub category "Business Coaching" and then another "VA Web Design" and then a third "Web Services" for services rendered through TPAs. I went back to find that my Business Coaching and VA Web Design categories had been renamed "Web Services" - ugh! And that what I had created was not saved. Ew. Worse, Quicken Personal software for Macs won't connect with my business accounts so I'd like to be able to do this all here online for free without spending another $75 on some tool I'll have to update again in a year....
Help out there? Subcategories sticking for you guys? -
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Another vote for creating parent categories and deleting categories I don't use. As a college student, I don't have many of the categories.
I also want to group the cost of my smartphone, apps, extra memory, and monthly payments in one category, but not label it bills, because only one of those things is a bill, but everything is phone-related. I want to be able to see how much my phone is costing me.
Similarly, I'm a big cyclist and I'd like to have a bike category with subcategories to group the various things that I buy (and sell) under this category: clothing, race entries, new parts, tune-ups, new bikes, selling parts on craigslist, the rack for my car, protein powder etc. That way I can see how much this hobby of mine costs me altogether and figure out if selling more of my extra stuff would balance it out more.
Conclusion: please make categories more customizable. -
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I figured it out. You just have to always click "add new category" and add your subcategory into that line, NOT type over what is in the text box when you go to create a subcategory. Otherwise, you are writing over what you had already created (Mint doesn't pull it over to a "saved" list or anything). Hope that helps!
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Quicken has the most veritility.
Financeworks has the better features over mint
Both mint and financeworks are not well/fully implemented and not as usable as they could be.
I don't think intuit is spending any development dollars at all
Heck in 7 months they have failed to add my 401k even though have requested it 3 times an even though they have other 401ks through the same ING site.
Perhaps they are trying to extort money from them before adding?? Not really sure except that it is clear there is ZERO customer service. -
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I’m
frustrated
2MINT: Please change the text on the answer to this question to make it clear that Mint currently only supports creating custom sub-categories, and not actual top-level categories.
It would be nice if you'd post an update also. The last Mint employee response was four months ago, suggesting the need for this feature would be communicated to the "Product Team". Are we to believe the "Product Team" has not made any decision as to whether or not they will work on this? If you're not going to provide the feature, just say so, and if you are, tell us that much at least. -
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I’m
frustrated
1Wow, I've been on mint for five minutes and was immediately frustrated that I couldn't figure out how to add custom parent categories. Just found this thread - so depressing!
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I’m
meh.
It seems likely that Mint needs consistent categories across users in order to provide value to advertisers. Remember, "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userd...
Maybe a theoretical paid version of Mint could offer this feature?
UPDATE: HelloWallet appears to be the most viable paid alternative. Giving them a try ...
https://www.hellowallet.com/ -
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I’m
Po'd that mint does not care about it's customers
Mint will never add this feature. It exists in their paid version "financeworks" which is available through banks only.
Hello wallet does not have an iPhone/mobile app so it really does not solve the problem for me.
The only all around app is mint though they will never add new features as mint is essentially a loss leader.
Pity. -
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RE: CATEGORIES TO ADD:
RELIGIOUS
Religious is a big category you missed. Different from "donations" - would cover activities that distinctly aren't "entertainment", "travel", "bills", etc. - like payment for church/temple activities, attending religious seminars, etc.
I guarantee you I'm not the only one who will use this category. 50 years ago, it would have been as obvious as the rest you've put in. Believe it or not, about 1/5 of the population still has a very active religious life, and they invest enough of their activity there for it to constitute an unmistakable "category" of their financial lives. -
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MEDICAL BILLS
I can't believe they missed it. Seriously, one of the main reasons why we Americans are in so much financial trouble is because of our out of pocket Medical expenses. I don't want it lumped with Health and Fitness, Are you guys kidding? There are a bunch of other ones missing as well. -
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1I understand that Mint.com's algorithms work via the parent categories, and thus they cannot be changed.
All I can do is ask that mint.com PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE allows users to add unlimited sub-categories. For me, this would take care of the problem.
Otherwise I will leave the site and stop referring people to it.-
Even this isn't a complete solution for everyone. I like some of the things Mint does with algorithms, but I'm not sure it's worth the sacrifice of custom categories. Mint did a decent job with the default categories, but it's only a starting point. We all have different financial situations and the software needs to be flexible enough to allow for that.
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Parent Categories to add:
Boat (there are a million subcategories to this: insurance, well, dry storage, payment, maintenance,
Club Memberships (dues, activities, greens fees, dining, court fees, etc)
Work (reimbursable work expenses such as gas, airlines, hotel, etc)
Medical (should not be under fitness. need copays, deductible, other out-of-pocket expenses) -
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I’m
happy
I guess the one category I take issue with is "Shopping". Talk about an overly broad subject!
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I’m
sad
Please allow us to have more control over categories, as well as hide existing categories that we don't use. I would gladly pay for this feature personally. I don't understand why there isn't a developer assigned to just appeasing the masses on this one, it seems like you are turning a deaf ear towards everyone that wants this feature?
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I’m
irritated
Adjust category management and stop giving general answers that confuse people.
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I’m
Disappointed
Not being able to create my own categories is a deal breaker...too bad I was excited to use the service.
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I’m
bummed that this website is useless
Yup, I'm giving up and closing my account as well. It's just not *actually* useful at all with out being able to manage parent categories.
Ps, unfortunately, fatwallet.com, suggested above, has exactly the same problem. -
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I’m
bummed that this website is useless
oops... it was hellowallet.com, not fatwallet.
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I’m
frustrated
I needed to create my own categories to correspond with my budget needs!
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Bump please! And please remove the answered" icon as this clearly is not the case... Or do they even care?
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1BUMP please!
Please go here and vote for a fix on this.
http://satisfaction.mint.com/mint/top...
It's an obivous feature that we should get, I wonder if Mint.com generates revenue somehow by NOT having this... ie: our spending habbits would be of less value to their data purchasers............? Clearly something motivates this brutal disregard for customer input... Not that we pay anything to use this...
Not that I'm not willing to pay!!!!!!!!! -
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This is a pretty basic feature to be missing. I guess I'm off to pay for MoneyDance.
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I’m
disappointed
I agree fully with Schelske. This along with not being able to add multiple categories to one budget make this nearly useless to me. The only advantage I get from mint is having a view of all of my accounts, loans, and credit card in one location.
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I’m
really disappointed in the absence of this key feature.
I need the ability to create my own parent categories so that I can allocate costs to my personal spending and a few small businesses that I own. On the surface, it seems like tagging should work.
The key missing feature here is that while you can auto-categorize payments to a certain recipient, you cannot auto-tag. This means I'd have to go in and tag each and every transaction.
I use Mint to track expenditures and net worth, not to budget. I also couldn't care less about alerts. Is there an option to create parent categories that don't have budget/alert tie-ins? -
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Hey guys.
I was on this "I need to be able to create parent categories" kick for a while as well when I first signed up with Mint - and I almost gave up on them. I decided to step back and, even though it definitely wasn't how I imagined organizing my records, use Mint's main Categories and then just tag things as relating to my business (I actually have 2 businesses I'm tracking). It has actually worked out just fine - once I let go of the idea that I absolutely have to track each business and my personal budget in separate Main Categories.
For example - so I let Mint categorize a trip to lunch as "Restaurant" in the "Food & Dining" Main Category - if it's a business lunch, I just tag that entry as related to a particular business. If I'm due reimbursement I've got a tag for that too. Done. I can easily search Mint's Restaurant Category and filter it to show only the one's tagged as an expense for my business. Using the Trends tab I can filter them by a date range as well.
Mint gets to advertise at me based on their main categories - that's how they make money and really why they don't let us create our own categories after all. I can still easily record and track my expenses with a few clicks. I've come around and while it's definitely not how I would have set things up in Quicken or iBank, it's really working great for me.
Just my 2¢... -
