Tags

A Tag is a label you attach to a transaction that isn’t about what it was, but about some theme that cuts across categories — #japan-trip, #tax-deductible, #kids. A single transaction can carry several tags, and the same tag can apply to transactions in completely different categories.

That’s the difference from a Category: a transaction has exactly one category (it’s Dining Out, not also Groceries), but it can carry as many tags as are relevant. A restaurant meal on vacation might be categorized as Dining Out and tagged #japan-trip — one answers “what was this spending?”, the other answers “what story was this part of?”

Why keep them separate from categories

A trip, a project, a tax situation — these don’t map cleanly onto “what kind of spending was this.” Forcing them into the category tree would mean either duplicating categories per trip or losing the ability to see “everything about the Japan trip” as its own view. Tags exist so that question has an answer without warping the category tree to fit it.

Next: teaching finzu to apply categories and tags automatically.