Categories are how CiviQ groups your spending. Every expense belongs to a category. Your budget is tracked per category. Your spending analysis shows categories. Getting categories right is worth 2 minutes of your time.

The default categories

  • 🍔 Food & dining — restaurants, Swiggy, Zomato, chai
  • 🛒 Groceries — DMart, BigBasket, Blinkit, Zepto, kirana
  • 🚕 Transport — Ola, Uber, Rapido, petrol, Metro, bus
  • 💡 Bills & Utilities — electricity, water, gas, internet, Airtel, Jio
  • 🎬 Entertainment — Netflix, movies, concerts, gaming
  • 🛍️ Shopping — Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, mall
  • 🏥 Health — medicines, doctor, hospital, Apollo Pharmacy
  • 💰 Investment — mutual funds, PPF, SGB, stocks
  • 🔄 Subscriptions — Spotify, Netflix, GitHub, any recurring service
  • 💼 Work & education — courses, books, stationery, software
  • ✈️ Travel — flights, hotels, Airbnb, trip expenses
  • 🎁 Gifts — birthday gifts, wedding gifts, donations
  • 🏠 Rent & home — rent, maintenance, furniture, repairs
  • ⚪ Other — anything that doesn't fit above

Auto-detection (how CiviQ knows it's Swiggy → Food)

CiviQ has a built-in merchant recognition system. When you type a merchant name, it matches it against a database of Indian merchants and suggests the right category automatically.

Example
What CiviQ auto-detects:

• Swiggy, Zomato, Dominos, Pizza Hut → Food & dining
• Ola, Uber, Rapido, auto, cab → Transport
• DMart, BigBasket, Blinkit, Zepto, Reliance Fresh → Groceries
• Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Spotify → Subscriptions
• Airtel, Jio, BSNL, Vodafone → Bills & Utilities
• Apollo, MedPlus, Netmeds, 1mg → Health
• Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Meesho → Shopping
• BPCL, Indian Oil, HP Petrol → Transport
• HDFC Life, LIC, ICICI Prudential → Investment
💡 The auto-detection uses fuzzy matching — so 'swiggi', 'swiggy delivery', and 'swiggy order' all map to Food & dining correctly.

Changing a category

The auto-detection is usually right, but not always. A 'doctor' charge might be Health, or it might be Reimbursement. Just tap the category chip and select the correct one. CiviQ remembers your choice for that merchant going forward.

🤙 'Chai by the kirana' — when you pay ₹15 for chai from the guy outside your building, just tap 'Food & dining'. Life's too short to create a 'Street food' category.