Categories

In addition to accounts and jars, Banzai offers students a third way to track their spending: by category. While accounts track where a student's money is at and jars what it is for, categories can be used to show where the money came from and what was actually done with it. Categories in Banzai are very similar to the accounting categories found in traditional personal finance packages such as Quicken or Microsoft Money.

Categories are hidden by default. You can display the category entry section of the transaction form by clicking the Show Categories link which appears directly below the jar entry section.

When categories are active, students create category entries for each transaction. Category entries work similarly to account and jar entries, save for the fact that categories do not have balances, as jars and accounts do. Note that, if a student doesn't account for the entire transaction amount in her category entries, the remainder will be marked "Uncategorized."

 

 

The above transaction demonstrates how categories can be useful. This transaction shows how jar activity can be misleading–the student has used funds from his Eating Out jar to make a purchase at a clothing store. By looking at the category entry, however, it becomes immediately clear what the purchase was for.