Toshl Finance Blog

Expense and Income Graphs (Web App)

A sense of proportion is a terrible thing to lack. Some call it the 7th sense. Somewhat ironically, these people who call it the 7th sense are precisely the ones who don’t have it. Toshl’s duty is to bring some sense of proportion to our finances, for our memories are feeble and don’t do numbers justice.

 

The expense and income graphs

 

Category donut

Expense and income graphs are here to help your memory. The upper part, that’s shaped like a Tokamak reactor from above (or a donut), represents the categories. Each part of the circle is a category and its size represents its portion of all the expenses. Just like any pie chart. The number in the middle of the circle is the sum of all the expenses.

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You can click on the categories to select them. More than one category can be selected at once. As you select them, the details below the chart change to reflect the full name of the categories and their details. You can see the total amount of a category its percentage of the total amount and how many expenses contributed to that sum. Select multiple categories and it will add them all up.

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Tag bubbles
A bit lower is the tags graph, where the size of the bubble gives a sense of proportion. This graph responds to the categories graph above. If all the categories are selected, all the tags will be displayed. Tags will display the sums for the entire tag, no matter which category they were used with.

If you select one of the categories, only the tags used on expenses together with that category will be displayed. The sum of the tag will also be filtered and display only the sum of the tag when used together with that category.

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Another important thing to remember is that you can use more than one tag on an expense. That means that the same expense could be counted in more than one tag bubble if you used more than one tag on an expense.

Just like with categories, tags can be selected and summed up. There is also a per day average and you can click & drag them around to relieve the stress of financial issues.

 

List of expenses and incomes
The list on the right can be displayed in 2 ways:
– by date
– by category

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When listed by date, the expenses are listed chronologically, with the latest ones on top.
When listed by category, a list of all categories is shown. Categories with the highest sum of expenses are shown on top. This way, you’ll be able to locate your largest money sinkholes quickly. If you click on a category, the nested tags and expenses will open up. Tags that are not assigned to any category will be listed below categories on the list.

 

Filtering data
As everywhere in the Web App, you can filter the data. All the graphs, sums and lists respond to the filters you selected. To filter, click the filtering bar on the top right, the one with an icon that looks like a funnel and text listing your selected accounts. A sidebar with filtering options will appear.

You can filter your data by:
financial accounts
categories
tags
locations

 

Each account can be turned on or off manually. With categories, tags and locations you have the option to include all, only some or exclude some.
Once the options are selected, this filtering applies pretty much everywhere, in all the graphs in the web app until you turn it off.

 

Coupled with the time span settings, it enables you to really drill down into specific expenses.
I could go so far as to filter only the expenses that came out of my bank account on the 25th of June, 1991 with the category “Home & Utilities”, using the tag “flags” and bought at Maximarket. I’m so specific that even if I dedicated my entire life to the army, I could never become a general.

Posted in Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Web App Tutorials