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Tiller's Philosophy About Categories
Tiller's Philosophy About Categories
Review the Tiller philosophy about categories and why we don't automatically assign them for you.
Heather Phillips avatar
Written by Heather Phillips
Updated over a week ago

Tiller's spreadsheet templates support up to 200 unique categories. The categories are created and managed on the Categories sheet. Tiller does not automatically categorize transactions by default, but do offer an automation tool, AutoCat, for both Google Sheets and Excel to help speed up your categorizing workflows.

We believe manually categorizing your spending builds a clear picture of where your money is going. Besides, most other tools we've tried that automatically assign categories fall short. How can they know the intent behind your $30 purchase at the coffee shop? Perhaps part of the purchase was a gift, so why would we assume?

To sum it up here's why we take this different approach to categories:

  1. It's quick. You can categorize your spending in just a few minutes a few times a week. It takes up less than 1% of your time.

  2. It builds awareness. You know exactly what you spent and where it sent when you touch each transaction. You're more engaged with your money this way.

  3. It aligns your spending with your intent. As previously mentioned, we can't assume to know your intent behind any purchase.

  4. It's more accurate. When you're doing it yourself, you always get it right.

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