The Expenses report shows you exactly where your money is going. With a visual breakdown by category and the ability to drill down into specific spending areas, you can identify opportunities to save and make informed decisions about your budget.
Accessing the Report
- Go to Reports from the main navigation.
- Select Expenses from the report options.
The Donut Chart
The main visualisation is a donut chart showing your expenses by category:
- Each slice represents a spending category
- Larger slices indicate higher spending
- The centre shows your total expenses for the period
- Hover over any slice to see the category name and amount
Period Selection
The button at the top left of the report shows the current period. Open it to choose from:
- This Month, This Quarter, This Financial Year, This Calendar Year
- Last Month, Last Quarter, Last Financial Year, Last Calendar Year
- Last 30 Days, Last 90 Days, Last 12 Months
- Custom Date Range, to set your own start and end dates
Financial-year periods follow the Australian financial year, 1 July to 30 June.
Category Breakdown
Below the chart, a detailed breakdown shows parent categories with their subcategories listed beneath. Each row displays the category name and the total amount spent.
Use the collapse/expand button (chevron icon) next to the "Transactions" heading to toggle every subcategory row at once. When collapsed, only parent category totals are shown.
Each parent category row has its own chevron on the right, collapsing or expanding just that category's subcategories.
Click on any category row to drill down further.
Drilling Into Categories
Parent Categories
Clicking a parent category (in the chart or the table) opens a subcategory breakdown panel showing:
- Each subcategory with its total amount
- The percentage each subcategory contributes to the parent total
- A summary row with the parent category's total spending
From here, click any subcategory to see its individual transactions. Use the back arrow to return to the subcategory breakdown, or continue back to the main table.
Subcategories and Individual Categories
Clicking a subcategory or a category without children shows:
Transaction List
All transactions in that category for the selected period, showing:
- Date
- Merchant
- Description
- Amount
Merchant Breakdown
A secondary breakdown showing spending by merchant within that category. This helps you identify:
- Your most frequent merchants
- Where you're spending the most within a category
- Opportunities to consolidate or switch providers
The merchant chart has a $ / % toggle in its header, so you can read either the dollars spent at each merchant or each merchant's share of the category. It appears once a category has spending at two or more merchants.
Finding Savings
The merchant breakdown often reveals unexpected spending patterns. You might find you're visiting one coffee shop far more than you realised, or that a particular subscription is costing more than expected.
Filtering Options
Click the Filters button to customise your report. You can filter by:
- Accounts: View just credit card spending or focus on specific accounts
- Categories: Exclude essentials to focus on discretionary spending
- Merchants: Analyse spending at specific stores or providers
- Tags: See "Business" expenses for tax, or "Holiday" spending for trip budgeting
- Amounts: Find small recurring charges or track large purchases
For detailed information on how filters work, including saving filter configurations, see Filtering Reports.
Asking Insights Questions
Insights answers plain-English questions about your spending using your own data.
Click the purple Insights button next to Filters to open the questions drawer.
Tap the sparkles icon in the top-right corner to open the questions sheet. Questions are grouped by topic.
Pick a question from the list. Some have highlighted parts you can tap to change (an account, an amount, a time period), so "When will my savings reach $100k?" can become "$250k" with one tap. Each answer shows a headline figure with a short caption, a couple of sentences of explanation and a tip.
Answers respect the report's current date range and filters, so if you've narrowed the report to one account or category, the insight describes that slice of your data.
Questions on this report include:
- How does my spending compare to the previous period, or the same period last year?
- How has my spending changed over this period?
- Which merchants do I spend the most with?
- Where could I cut back to save a set amount a month?
- What's my average monthly spending over this period?
- Which months did I spend the most and least?
- How much of my spending goes to my top categories?
Comparing Periods
The comparison question is like for like: if you're 22 days into August, it compares against the first 22 days of July (or of last August), not the whole month. The answer shows the two totals side by side, a projected month-end figure while the month is in progress, and the categories that moved most. A single large payment that explains a jump, such as an annual insurance premium, is flagged as a one-off, switch the question to excluding one-offs to see the underlying trend without it. Any filters applied to the report apply to both periods.
Most of these are calculated directly by Financio; a handful are answered with help from an AI provider using only amounts, dates and category or merchant names. The first time you use Insights you'll be asked to acknowledge how your data is handled. See AI Features & Privacy for details, including how to turn AI features off for the whole household.
Questions that need more history than you have (for example, three months of transactions) are hidden until enough data exists.
Uncategorised Expenses
If you see an "Uncategorised" slice in your chart, it means some transactions don't have a category assigned. To fix this:
- Click on the Uncategorised slice
- Review the transactions shown
- Go to Transactions and categorise each one
- Consider setting up Automation Rules to automatically categorise similar transactions in the future
Accuracy Matters
For the most useful expense analysis, ensure all transactions are categorised. Uncategorised transactions hide the true picture of your spending.
Downloading Data
Download Chart
Save the donut chart as a PNG image. Useful for:
- Monthly budget reviews
- Sharing with financial advisors
- Including in personal financial reports
Download CSV
Export the expense data to a spreadsheet containing:
- Category name
- Total amount
- Transaction count
- Percentage of total
Common Use Cases
Monthly Budget Review
At the end of each month, review your expenses report to see if you stayed within budget for each category.
Identifying Problem Areas
Large unexpected slices might indicate areas where spending has gotten out of control.
Tracking Discretionary Spending
Use category filters to focus on non-essential categories and see where you might be able to cut back.
Comparing Periods
Look at the same month across different years to identify seasonal patterns or lifestyle changes.
Table View
Tap Table in the view switcher to swap the donut for a plain list of every category and its total, indented to show subcategories under their parents, with a Total Expenses row at the bottom. Tap any row to drill in.
The web report shows the donut chart and the full category breakdown together on one page, so there's no separate table view to switch to. For a spreadsheet of the same figures, use Download CSV. See Exporting Reports.