Rules and Limits
Field limits
Section titled “Field limits”| Field | Limit | What happens beyond it |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction description | 200 characters | Trimmed |
| Transaction notes | 500 characters | Trimmed |
| Category name | 18 characters | Refused, with a message |
| Account name | 100 characters | The name box stops you at 100 |
| Credit card name | 100 characters | Refused |
| Portfolio asset name | 100 characters | Trimmed |
| Portfolio ticker | 20 characters, upper-cased | Trimmed |
| Currency symbol | 3 characters | Trimmed |
| Database name | 64 characters | Trimmed |
Category names are the strict one because they appear as statement column headings and as pills on every transaction row, neither of which can hold much text. “Health & Wellness”, the longest default, is 17 characters.
Values
Section titled “Values”Amounts are stored as positive numbers with the direction kept separately, rounded to the cent when saved. See Money In Money Out and Transfers.
Portfolio amounts and prices are the exception — they are stored exactly as entered, because share counts and unit prices legitimately need more than two decimal places.
Years must be four digits, between 1000 and 9999, and cannot duplicate a year you already have.
Rewards percentage on a credit card is between 0 and 100. Available credit and annual fee cannot be negative.
Dates must be real dates.
Hard rules
Section titled “Hard rules”These cannot be worked around, and they exist to stop your data contradicting itself.
A categorized transaction takes its direction from its category. No exceptions. The Type dropdown locks as soon as a category is set. Changing a category’s type re-types every transaction under it, retroactively. See Money In Money Out and Transfers.
Category names must be unique.
A category in use cannot be deleted. If transactions are filed under it, or a value is typed into one of its Cash Flow cells, the delete is refused with a count. Reassign first.
The two Uncategorized categories cannot be renamed, deleted, or re-typed. They can be reordered. See Default Categories.
Creating an account requires a name. The button stays disabled until you type one. See Accounts.
An account is only created by an import landing in it. Choosing one in a picker and then backing out leaves nothing behind.
A blank Cash Flow cell is never an override. Clearing a cell hands it back to being calculated. To force zero, type 0. See Computed and Typed Values.
Only categories you set become rules. An automatic guess is never treated as evidence for future guesses.
Automatic categorization never changes an existing category and never flips a transaction’s direction.
Nothing is written until you confirm. Imports write only when you press “Looks Right”; before that everything on screen, including the uncategorized count, comes from a run that saved nothing.
Confirmations
Section titled “Confirmations”Actions that ask before proceeding:
| Action | Confirmation |
|---|---|
| Delete transactions | A dialog with the count |
| Delete all transactions | Type DELETE |
| Delete a statement year | A dialog naming the year |
| Delete an account or column with values | A second dialog after the first refusal |
| Delete a portfolio account | A dialog naming the account |
| Restore default settings | A dialog |
| Remove encryption | A warning plus the current password |
| Overwrite an existing file on export | A dialog |
None of these can be undone. There is no bin and no undo history — the protection is the confirmation, and your backup. See Backing Up Your Data.
Things with no limit worth mentioning
Section titled “Things with no limit worth mentioning”Number of transactions, categories, accounts, statement years, portfolio accounts, assets, credit cards, and planned forecast items. Personal-scale data does not come close to troubling the app.
Related: Categories · Accounts · Computed and Typed Values