Partially automated categorization
I’m coming from YNAB and one of the strengths of that was I always knew where my money was categorized because I had to confirm every transaction.
I do like the idea of automatic categorizing with AI, but to be done well it should be measured, or configured in on-boarding. Especially when I first signed up, the app didn’t know how to categorize and made a number of incorrect categorizations.
It would be good to have different levels of help with the AI
Fully automate - where as it is now - categorizes for you
Partially automate - where it will categorize high certainly transactions automatically, and ask for medium and low certainty transactions, or even recommended categorizations to confirm
Manually confirm each transaction- highest precision and certainty that your transactions are being categorized correctly
This would be a more measured path to increase precision, and help me feel more comfortable with the automated categorizing
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Comments1
team@waypointbudget
Aug 27
Hi @OrrinWorker, Thanks for writing this up, it's a well-argued case and you're not wrong about the first-week experience.
Some of what you're describing already exists, just not visibly. Categorization runs as a ladder, not a single AI pass: your own rules first, then an in house merchant dictionary built from how thousands of merchants, and only then does AI see a transaction. Most rows never reach it. We measure the accuracy of each layer against what users actually keep, and the dictionary retires entries that stop agreeing with real labels.
The reason week one feels rough is that the first layer is empty. You have no rules yet, so a much larger share of your transactions falls through to the guess. Every correction you make writes a rule, and when we spot others like it we offer to apply it retroactively. That gap closes fast, but you're right that we throw you into the deep end before it does.
On your middle tier: we can't do it honestly today. Our categorizer doesn't emit a per-transaction confidence score, so "auto-apply the confident ones" would mean inventing a number and dressing it up as certainty. We'd rather not.
Where we are heading is closer to your third option. Marking transactions as reviewed, with new and unreviewed rows flagged so you can work through them and know exactly what you've confirmed, is on our list and you're the fourth person to ask. No date yet. If that lands and people still want graduated automation on top, we'll revisit.
In the meantime, filtering to Uncategorized on the transactions page plus the New badge on anything from the last 24 hours gets you most of a review pass.