Reviewing and Correcting Categories

Reviewing and correcting categories

Regularly reviewing your transaction categories keeps your books accurate and helps Penny learn your preferences. Here's how to review, correct, and manage your categorised transactions.

The review queue

Your review queue contains all transactions that need your attention. You can access it from:

• Dashboard — The "Needs Review" card shows a count and takes you directly to the queue.
• Transactions page — Filter by "Awaiting review" to see only transactions that need action.
• WhatsApp — Ask Penny "What needs reviewing?" and she'll summarise outstanding items.

Transactions in the review queue are sorted by priority: those closest to a quarterly submission deadline appear first, followed by higher-value transactions, then everything else.

Confirming a category

When Penny suggests a category with reasonable confidence, you'll see the transaction with the suggested category and two options:

• Confirm — The category is correct. Click the tick or reply "Yes" on WhatsApp.
• Change — The category needs correcting. Click to see alternatives or type the correct category.

Confirming is just as valuable as correcting — it tells Penny that her suggestion was right, which reinforces good categorisation for future similar transactions.

Correcting a category

If Penny has assigned the wrong category, you can correct it in several ways:

From the dashboard or transactions page:

1. Click on the transaction to open the detail view.
2. Click the category to see a dropdown of alternatives.
3. Select the correct HMRC category and subcategory.
4. Optionally add a note explaining the correction (this helps your accountant and future you).

From WhatsApp:

1. When Penny asks about a transaction, reply with the correct category.
2. Penny understands natural language, so you can say things like "That's travel, not office costs" or "It's stock for resale".

What happens when you correct

Every correction teaches Penny something new:

• Same merchant, same category — Future transactions from that merchant will be categorised the same way automatically.
• Pattern recognition — If you consistently recategorise certain types of transactions, Penny adjusts her model for your account.
• Confidence adjustment — Penny's confidence scores for similar transactions are recalibrated based on your corrections.

Bulk review

If you have many transactions to review (for example, after first connecting your bank), you can use the bulk review feature:

1. Go to Transactions > Awaiting Review.
2. Click "Bulk Review" at the top of the page.
3. You'll see transactions grouped by Penny's suggested category. Confirm entire groups at once, or expand to review individual transactions.

This is significantly faster than reviewing one by one and is particularly useful during your first week with Accounted.

Splitting transactions

Sometimes a single bank transaction covers multiple expense types — for example, a supermarket receipt that includes both office supplies and cleaning products. You can split a transaction:

1. Open the transaction detail view.
2. Click "Split Transaction".
3. Enter the amounts and categories for each portion.
4. Penny will remember this split if the same pattern occurs again.

Best practices

• Review weekly. A quick five-minute review each week prevents a backlog building up before quarterly submissions.
• Don't overthink it. If you're unsure about a category, Penny's suggestion is usually a good starting point. You can always adjust later.
• Use notes. Adding a brief note to unusual transactions (e.g., "Client gift for Smith account") helps at year-end.
• Check before submitting. Always review your outstanding items before approving a quarterly submission to HMRC.