Categorize and tag transactions

Each bank transaction comes in with a category Plaid assigned at sync time. ClarityTrack uses these categories for spending breakdowns and Clarity's financial analytics. If a category is wrong or you want to track something at a finer grain, open the transaction and change it. The change applies immediately and ClarityTrack remembers it for similar transactions from the same merchant going forward.

How to do it

1. From the Dashboard, click the Transactions tab.
2. Find the transaction. Use search or filters to narrow it down.
3. Click the transaction to open the detail panel.
4. Use the Category dropdown to pick a new category. Common categories include Food and Drink, Transportation, Shopping, Travel, Entertainment, Bills, Loan Payment.
5. Optionally add tags (free-text labels) for your own grouping.
6. Click Save.

How recurring transactions are handled

When you change the category for a transaction, ClarityTrack creates an override scoped to that merchant. Future transactions from the same merchant will inherit the new category automatically. If you ever want to revert, open one of the auto-categorized future transactions and pick a different category; the override updates.

Common questions

Plaid's categories sometimes feel off. What do I do?

Override them. Plaid's auto-categorization uses general merchant metadata, which is sometimes wrong for niche or local merchants. Your overrides are authoritative.

Can I bulk-update categories for a list of transactions?

Not yet from the UI. You can ask Clarity to do it: "categorize all my Whole Foods transactions as Groceries instead of Food and Drink" and Clarity will preview the bulk update and ask you to confirm.

Do my category changes affect debt payoff projections?

No directly. Categories are for spending analytics and Clarity's narrative. Debt payoff projections use debt balances, APRs, and payment history; categories are not in that calculation.

Will changing a category affect already-computed Clarity Insights?

Eventually, yes. The daily Clarity Insight regenerates each day from current data, so a category change today will be reflected in tomorrow's insight. If you need to see the new insight immediately, the demo-data wipe path also clears the cache; ad hoc invalidation for single category changes is not currently supported.