Listing your expenses and incomes. Here’s how it works.

Expense in the list

The category, the tag(s), optional info like repeats and reminders followed by amount and currency.
Tap on it and you get to expense details where you can view, edit or delete the expense.

Pretty straightforward.

If you’re wondering about the icons on the expenses and incomes here’s what they are:
– Repeating expense. It will repeat automatically based on a setting of your choice. Open expense details or edit to find out more about the specific type of repeat.
– You can set to be reminded when your expenses come up, or some time before. Once the expense is due, the bell icon will be replaced by a red dot, warning you that the expense is still unpaid.
– Speaking of the devil… The red dot, warns you that the expense is still unpaid. Go into expense details, tap “mark as paid” and it shall go away.

Swipe for quick actions

Swipe an expense or income on the list from right to left. You can use these buttons to quickly delete or edit an expense. If the expense has a reminder, you can also mark it as paid or unpaid, straight from the list.

Planned expenses

If you have any expenses entered on future dates this month, a special row will be shown on top of the list called “planned expenses”. You can open it to reveal which expenses are coming up this month. To add an expense into planned expenses, enter it is you would any expense, just set the date in the future of that month.

You can also choose to include these planned expenses into graphs or not.

Sorting by date, by category and search

Open the expense list. Collect your thoughts, gather courage, pull the expenses down with your finger. A previously hidden top of the list will reveal itself in all its glory. Indiana Jones would be proud.

You will find the option to search your expenses. Tap inside the field and search for pretty much any expense attribute.

A bit higher still are the tabs to choose sorting by date or by category.
By default, the expenses are listed by date. 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.

Filtering data

As everywhere in the app, you can filter your data. Use the time span options to filter by time, or filter by accounts. You can find both types of filtering in the right sidebar. Tap on the time and account preview on the top right, or swipe from anywhere on the rightmost edge of the screen to activate it.

The web app offers a few more options for filtering. Use the web app to also filter by category, tag or location. More on this here.

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.

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.

You can tap 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.

Hint: if you tap the centre of the circle, all of the categories will be selected. If you tap again, none will be selected.

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 then 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.

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.

Once in a while, one needs to take a broader look of things, even personal finances. To help you see your monthly flow of finances from a higher ground, we made the “river flow” graph.

Imagine the money that you earn and spend each month as a system of rivers. It flows in, hopefully rests a bit in a lake of your making, then most of it flows out again to replenish the fields – or yourself and your phone bill. With some good planning you can build yourself a dam and some accumulation lakes on the side, just to be safe if a dry season ever hits you.

The number at the very top is your income, your main inbound stream. If you set up your monthly budget for all expenses, that will be the dam that you constructed. Income flows in and hits the dam. If the income amount is larger than the budget amount, the difference will flow into your savings for the dry months. It’s good to grow an “accumulation lake” or your “savings account” as your less poetic banker would call it.

If the budget is larger than the income, you’re living beyond your means and need to readjust the budget. Or, even better, increase the income if possible.

Beyond your budget dam and monthly money lake, your expenses flow out. The width of the flow represents its size.
The flow in dark red are expenses that have already been made.
The orange flow are your planned expenses, the ones which are coming this month, but have not been due yet.
The green flow is your “left to spend” money. The money that you have already budgeted for, so it should hold by the end of the month, but you have yet to let it flow out of the dam.

If you have not built your dam yet (set up a monthly budget for all expenses), then the flows will simply be going straight down, but their width still representing their size.

If your expense flow is much stronger than the income one, you know the lakes will run dry rather quickly. It’s a situation that should be quickly fixed. Hopefully you’ve accumulated enough in the past to weather through this dry season.

Hopefully, the river flow graph will help you get a good understanding of your money flows and you’ll be able to avoid the dire situations before they occur.

While it’s great seeing these rivers from the top down to manage your money better, it’s even better in first person, leaping down those rapids as the Toshl Monsters see them…

To learn more, check out the Monthly overview and Left to spend blog posts.