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Your bank reports every transaction against an Open Banking (CDR) category: codes like FOOD_AND_DRINK or INCOME_SALARY. Custom categories let you define your own taxonomy on top: your own names, organised into groups, with each bank category routed to one of them. Synced transactions then carry your category and its group alongside the raw bank category.

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Your taxonomy

Open Categories in the app. On first visit you get a default taxonomy: themed groups (Income, Housing, Food, Transport, Lifestyle, Health, Commitments, Giving & Government, Transfers, Other) with every bank category already routed somewhere sensible. From there it’s yours to reshape:
  • Rename a category by clicking its name.
  • Add groups and categories, or delete ones you don’t use.
  • Move a category to another group by dragging it onto that group’s card.
  • Re-route a bank category by expanding a category and dragging one of its bank categories onto a different category.
Deleting a category asks where its bank categories should route from then on. Pick another category, or let them pass through as the raw bank category. A group must be emptied before it can be deleted.
A bank subcategory with no routing of its own follows its parent category’s routing. Dragging it somewhere else creates an explicit route for just that subcategory.

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Where your categories appear

The raw bank category is always kept alongside. Your categories are added, never substituted. YNAB uses its own per-sync category mapping into your budget’s categories and is not affected by this taxonomy.

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Enabling on a sync

New syncs include custom categories automatically. Syncs created before the feature keep their exact output shape until you opt in: open the sync’s Settings page and switch on Include custom categories. From the next run, the extra columns or fields appear; existing rows are never rewritten.

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Resetting

Settings → Reset categories replaces your whole taxonomy (groups, names, and routing) with the default set. This can’t be undone, and syncs with custom categories enabled use the default names from their next run.