For years my husband has counted on Banktivity to monitor our spending money and accounts. Finally I convinced him to let me work with it too.

What followed, after the – it won’t sync, you’ll mess it up – among a long list of reasons I should steer clear, was a day of lessons.

The first thing we had to check was syncing – if I made a change, could he see it quickly on his computer – and visa-versa. Answer – absolutely YES. And when it’s fast, it’s very very fast since you are effectively reading and writing to the cloud. But it’s not always fast – and sometimes the things that are slow (like the list of categories showing up) are frustrating. But it does Sync – both immediately upon a change, and again when you close the session.

Once I got a bit of experience under my belt – I quickly starting asking questions about reports and categories and tags. My husband had never used tags – and I decided to experiment. I’m here to report that the Tags in Banktivity are super powerful.

I’m using Banktivity on an ipad – so some of the following won’t work quite as described if you are working on a computer or a phone. Just FYI.

Tags are pre-setup using the Manage Tags option found in Configuration on the Summary Page. It worth spending time thinking about HOW you’ll use the Tags you create before setting them up. And knowing HOW you’ll use the Tags requires understanding how Tags differ from other ways of looking at your transactions.

So – Step 1 – How do Tags differ from other ways of looking at your transactions?

A) Tags run across currency, across bank accounts, across methods of payment (different credit cards). So say you want to quickly know how much a particular trip will cost you in total. Using a Tag and carefully assigning it to every transaction that impacts that trip will work perfectly, no matter what method of payment you use. And it easy to check the totals – and individual impacted transactions. On the Summary screen is a heading entitled Tags. Just click on that to ‘see more’ and you’ll see totals for the current month for all the Tags you’ve created. Click on a specific Tag to show all the associated transactions. Cool.

B) Multiple Tags can be assigned to one Transaction. So you can have #Dining as a Tag, and #Trip to India as a different Tag – and assign BOTH Tags to a transaction with the Payee of a Restaurant in India. Then when you look at the Summary across Tags – you’ll see that single transaction amount included in both Tag Totals.

C) Tags can be ‘renamed’ in the Configuration Routine on the fly, and all transactions that use that Tag will be updated. You can’t delete Tags already in use – but you can rename them and search for them.

Step 2 – What Tags should you create?

A) Think Small – Do you want to know what you’ve spent on Dining this month/year? Make #Dining a Tag. Do you want to know what you’ve spent on a particular activity – like a trip to Paris, or a Weekend with Friends? Make #Paris a Tag, or make #Weekend with Friends July 2024 a Tag. Tags can be rather long – and it doesn’t matter because you just tap to assign them to a Transaction.

B) Think Big – Do you want to be able to see the total you’ve earned over several different activities – say renting 2 condos, or selling Coasters and selling Painting, or buying Clothes and buying Furniture for a specific home? Since Tags accumulate the money spent or earned across all the other types of transaction divisions – just create them and assign them – Use the Tag option on the Summary page to see how the totals compare. Just remember that you can assign multiple Tags to one transaction – and the money spent/earned will be accounted for again and again.

Step 3 – How easy is it to add/remove Tags?

A) Very Easy is the quick answer

B) To add a Tag – go to a transaction, even one that has been verified – Edit the transaction, pick a Line and click on the Message/Tag blank. Click on a Tag to add it to the line. Click on a Tag already associated with a line to remove it. Close the Transaction – Job done.

Step 4 – Can you use Tags in your history?

A) I haven’t really explored reports yet to see how Tags are handled – and since it’s thru Reports that you can do historical analysis – the quick answer here is – I’m not sure. Perhaps you can comment if you have more information.

I hope this quick and easy description sounds worth trying – I love being able to quickly see how much a particular activity (biking) is costing me – or to evaluate how much a trip has cost so far (Paris July 2024).

Signing off the add some more Tags… The Soup Lady.