Introduction to Tags and Tagging – Money Dashboard Classic

1. What are Tags and why are they important?

3. Auto-tagging and Untagged Notification

What are Tags and why are they important?

When you are looking at your transactions on Money Dashboard Classic you might notice the tag column.

Tags = The ‘category’ that you give to a transaction

Tags are the backbone of using Money Dashboard Classic. Simply put, assigning tags to your transactions is grouping and categorising your spending and income. Rather than seeing all your spend in isolated transactions you can get a sense of what you're actually spending in certain areas.

Keeping on top of your tagging is a great way to stay in control of your finances and will ensure that all your budgets and reporting stays accurate.

How do tags work?

There are three levels of tags in Money Dashboard Classic. We would also recommend a quick read on The Importance of Tagging levels for a more in-depth understanding.

"Top level" are the broadest categories, things like Enjoyment, Bills and Family
"Second level" are the groups of tags that sit underneath the top level ones. For example, the top level tag 'Enjoyment' is split into sub categories of: cash, dining or going out, entertainment, TV, media, hobbies, activities etc..
"Third level" are super granular! They break down the second level tags even further. For example a 'second level' tag for "hobbies" could be split into third level with tags for art supplies, course materials, tuition fees etc.

When starting to use Money Dashboard Classic, top level tags and second level tags are usually sufficient. As you progress with your money management journey, third level tags and creating your own custom tags might come into play.

This might all sound very complex, but it's designed to be simple!

We automatically categorise as many transactions as possible.
We'll flag 'untagged' transactions so you can easily find them
You can tag anything we couldn't and update others to suit you
Use the "Apply to similar" rule to train the system to recognise transactions unique to you

Auto-Tagging and Untagged Notification

Money Dashboard Classic's system tries to pick up relevant information about the transactions and tag them automatically and as accurately as possible. At times the system might not be able to automatically assign a tag because it's not a familiar type of transaction. For example, if you bought a coffee from Costa Coffee, our system would probably pick that up as compared to having bought a coffee from a local shop called 'Tasty Buns'.

Returning to 'Tasty Bun' example, the transaction might come up as a part of your 'Untagged notifications' or been assigned a different Tag then one you would prefer.

Each time you manually Tag transactions and use the option 'Apply to Similar', you are setting up a tagging rule and with time the system starts picking up on unique transactions and automated tagging gets more accurate.

Top tip

Keep on top of your untagged transactions by logging in regularly.

You will see a small red 'badge' on your transactions page with the number of transactions that are not yet tagged.

Click on the red text "you have untagged transactions" on the transactions tag, this will quickly filter your list & you can easily add tags to ensure your dashboard reports are in top shape.