Transactions
Transactions are the individual entries of activity within an asset — every deposit, withdrawal, trade, and transfer. They are the raw data from which Tally Up builds your reports, categories, and budgets.
Viewing transactions
Section titled “Viewing transactions”Open any asset to see its transaction list. Transactions are shown in date order with the date, description, amount, category, and running balance.
You can filter by date range, search by description, or show only uncategorised transactions.
Transaction types
Section titled “Transaction types”Cash transactions
Section titled “Cash transactions”| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Deposit | Money coming into the asset |
| Withdrawal | Money leaving the asset |
| Transfer | Movement of money between two assets in your plan |
| Interest Income | Interest earned on the account |
| Dividend | Dividend received from a security |
Investment transactions
Section titled “Investment transactions”| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Buy | Purchase of a security |
| Sell | Sale of a security |
| Move Shares In | Securities transferred in from another account (no cash effect) |
| Move Shares Out | Securities transferred out to another account (no cash effect) |
| Stock Split | Corporate action adjusting share quantity |
Options transactions
Section titled “Options transactions”| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Buy to Open | Opening a long options position |
| Buy to Close | Closing a short options position |
| Sell to Open | Opening a short options position |
| Sell to Close | Closing a long options position |
Adding a transaction manually
Section titled “Adding a transaction manually”Tap Add on the Transactions screen to record a transaction manually. Fill in the date, amount, type, and optionally a payee and description. For investment transactions, you can also specify the security, quantity, price, and commission.
Editing and deleting
Section titled “Editing and deleting”Tap any transaction to open it. From there you can edit all of its details — date, amount, type, payee, description, and for investment transactions the security, quantity, price, and commission. You can also adjust its category or delete it.
Categorising transactions
Section titled “Categorising transactions”Most cash transaction types can be assigned a category. Categories are stored on splits — portions of the transaction amount assigned to a specific category. A simple transaction has one split covering the full amount. See Categories for how to set up your category structure.
Assigned categories are shown as coloured icon pills on each transaction row. The colour and icon come from the category’s symbol and colour settings.
Tally Up assigns categories automatically using your Category Rules. You can review and override these at any time.
Split transactions
Section titled “Split transactions”A transaction can be divided across multiple categories. For example, a supermarket trip might be split between Groceries and Household. Each split covers a portion of the total amount and can have its own category.
To split a transaction, open it and edit the splits section. Add as many splits as needed — the amounts must sum to the total transaction amount.
Lookup button
Section titled “Lookup button”When editing a transaction’s category, a Look Up button appears near the transaction description. Tapping it opens your browser to help you identify an unfamiliar merchant:
- Most merchants — opens a Google search for the merchant name.
- Amazon — opens your Amazon order history. The button label shows the active store’s region code, e.g. Look Up on Amazon (UK). Tap and hold (iPhone) or click the dropdown arrow (iPad and Mac) to switch to a different country store; Tally Up remembers your choice for next time. The default store is determined by your device’s region.
- Apple — opens reportaproblem.apple.com and copies the transaction amount to your clipboard, ready to paste into the Search by Price field.
The search term is derived from the cleanest available merchant name — raw bank statement noise is stripped before the query is sent.
The same lookup is also available directly from the Uncategorised queue — see below.
Transfer linking
Section titled “Transfer linking”When money moves between two assets in your plan — for example, £500 from a current account to a savings account — Tally Up records a transaction on both sides. These two transactions can be linked so the app recognises them as two sides of the same movement, preventing double-counting in reports.
Transfer links are created automatically during import where possible. You can also link or unlink them manually by editing the transfer split on either transaction.
Reviewing uncategorised transactions
Section titled “Reviewing uncategorised transactions”The Assets screen shows a banner card with the total number of uncategorised transactions across your whole plan. Tap it to open the Uncategorised queue — a single view listing every transaction that still needs a category, regardless of which account it belongs to.
From the queue you can assign a category, create a category rule, or edit splits without navigating account by account.
Each row shows the transaction amount and a magnifier icon on the right. Tapping that area opens a look-up to help you identify an unfamiliar merchant before categorising it — the same Google, Amazon, and Apple routing described in the Lookup button section above. On iPhone, press and hold the right side of an Amazon row to switch to a different country store.
Reviewing new transactions
Section titled “Reviewing new transactions”When a bank connection sync brings in new transactions, the Assets screen shows a New banner card alongside the uncategorised count. Tap it to open the New Transactions queue — a plan-wide list of every bank-imported transaction you have not yet reviewed, regardless of which account it belongs to.
Each row shows the date, description, amount, and the account it came from. You can:
- Tap a suggested category chip to apply it instantly.
- Or open the full category and splits editor.
- Tap the row to open the transaction detail view for deeper edits or deletion.
Transactions are marked as seen automatically as you scroll past them. Once all new transactions have been seen or categorised, the banner disappears.
Reconciling transactions with a file
Section titled “Reconciling transactions with a file”If an account balance looks wrong or you want to compare Tally Up with an external statement, open the asset’s Transactions screen and choose Reconcile from File from the import menu.
Reconciliation is read-only. Tally Up parses the selected CSV or QIF file, compares its transactions with the transactions already stored in the asset, and shows:
- transactions found in both places
- transactions in the app only
- transactions in the file only
- skipped or unparseable file rows
- the net amount represented by unmatched file-only and app-only rows
No transactions are imported, edited, or deleted during reconciliation.
Tally Up does not create a separate pending-balance adjustment from this comparison. If the asset balance and statement do not line up, use the unmatched rows and proposed matches to identify which transactions need attention.
Tally Up matches transactions by rounded amount, currency, description, and a small date tolerance, because bank files often use a posting date that is a few days away from the date already stored in the app. For credit-card QIF files, card charges are normalised to match the app’s spending sign convention.
If a file uses an earlier transaction date for a later booking date — for example a refund dated to the original purchase — you can adjust the file row’s date in the reconciliation results and the comparison reruns immediately.
After the strict date-aware pass, Tally Up also proposes possible matches for remaining rows that have the same amount and similar descriptions but different dates. Approve a proposed match with the toggle to remove both rows from the unmatched lists. This approval only affects the reconciliation report; it does not change the stored transaction or the source file.
Importing transactions
Section titled “Importing transactions”Rather than adding transactions manually, you can import them in bulk:
- QIF Import — from most desktop finance apps and many banks
- CSV Import — from bank statement downloads or copied spreadsheet data