Reports that show where the money went

What it does

A budget tells you what you meant to spend. A report tells you what actually happened. Looking back over a few months, or a whole year, is how you find the category that quietly doubled, the payee you didn’t realize you paid that often, or the month income dipped.

Kemback’s Reports page answers two questions: how your net worth is moving, and where the money went. Everything on it is calculated from your own transactions, to the cent.

How it works in Kemback

At the top of the page, one row of buttons sets the scope for everything below it: a period (This month, Last 3 months, Year to date, Last 12 months or Last 5 years) and a grouping (By category, By payee or By tag).

• Income, Spending and Saved. Three figures for the period: what came in, what went out, and the difference. If spending was higher than income, the third figure reads Overspent instead.
• Spending by category, payee or tag. A bar for each of the ten largest, with how many transactions make it up, and the rest added together as Everything else.
• Income by category, payee or tag. Each source of income for the period, largest first.
• Net worth over time. Net worth, assets and liabilities by month, with the change since the start of the period. See net worth.
• Balances today. Every account under What you have or What you owe.

Transfers between your accounts are never counted as income or spending, so moving money to savings or paying a credit card doesn’t inflate either side.

Getting more from reports

Reports are only as good as the categories behind them. A few habits make them sharper:

• Let rules do the categorizing. Rules can rename messy bank payees (“AMZN Mktp US” becomes “Amazon”) and set categories as transactions arrive, so reports by payee and category read cleanly.
• Use tags for things categories don’t capture. A renovation, a wedding or a trip touches several categories. Tag those transactions and group the report by tag to see the whole cost in one place.
• Split mixed purchases. A single receipt for groceries and household goods can be split across categories in the register, and each part is reported under its own category.
• Compare periods. Look at the last 3 months, then the last 12, to tell a one-off from a trend.

Reports on the overview

For a quicker look, the Overview dashboard shows this month at a glance: what you’ve spent against last month, a breakdown of spending by category, and a bar for each budgeted category that turns amber from 80% spent and red when it’s over, with a text label as well as the colour. Every chart slice and bar opens the transactions behind it.

In a shared household

Reports are calculated from the transactions each member can see. In a household with a private account, its spending appears in its owner’s reports and not in anyone else’s, while the shared accounts appear for everyone.

Where it runs

Reports work in any browser at kemback.com and in the iPhone app, which is in beta. They’re on the Free plan. Your transactions come from OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV files from your bank, or a switch from another app, until automatic bank sync arrives with the Plus plan. You can export everything as JSON or CSV at any time.

For help reading the numbers, see how to read a cash flow report and income vs spending trends.

Questions

What can I group spending by?

By category, by payee or by tag. The same choice applies to the income list, and you can switch between them with one click.

Do transfers between my accounts count as spending?

No. A transfer from checking to savings, or a card payment from checking, is left out of income and spending, so the totals reflect money that actually came in and went out.

What periods can I choose?

This month, the last 3 months, year to date, the last 12 months or the last 5 years. One choice applies to everything on the page.

Can I report on a project that spans several categories?

Yes. Tag the transactions (a rule can do it automatically, like #renovation for a hardware store), then group the report by tag.

Does Kemback make tax reports?

No. The reports cover spending, income and net worth. For tax questions, a tax professional is the right person to ask.