Markers are tags for creating groupings beyond categories. While the category answers "what kind of expense is this", the marker answers questions that cut across categories: how much that trip cost, how much went to a particular supplier, how heavy that renovation was once you add materials, labor and transport.
Every entry already has a marker
You don't need to create anything to start using markers. By default, an entry's marker is the first word of its first description. That turns out to be surprisingly useful with imported data: statements usually start the description with the merchant name, so automatic markers already group by supplier with no work on your part.
When that default doesn't fit, you define your own — what the app calls an added marker. It is stored as a description line in the form marcador: bahia-trip, and takes the place of the automatic one.
"trip" groups every trip of every year. "bahia-trip-2026" answers a real question. Markers with a naming pattern — project, place, year — age far better.
The marker on the entry itself
You do not need to know how to write the marcador: line to have a marker of your own. The entry editor has a field just for it, with a pencil button that opens the edit box — and the box is what writes the description line for you.
The field's label says where the marker showing there came from:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Automatic Marker | Nobody chose anything: what you see beside it is the first word of the first description, and it follows any change you make to that description. |
| Marker | The text was written by you and holds in place of the automatic one. |
Inside the edit box there is a ? that explains the field and, when there is an automatic marker to fall back to, says what it is. Clear empties the field, and confirming while it is empty returns the entry to its automatic marker rather than leaving it with none: leaving the box empty is a valid answer, not a cancellation — to back out, close it with the X. The read-only entry screen, in turn, shows the marker line only when you added one: the automatic marker does not become a line, because it is already in plain sight in the description.
The same field shows up in four places: editing an entry, editing a single-category entry, the import template — which stamps the marker on everything it imports — and the bulk categorization of imported entries.
Under Settings › Advanced options there is a Transaction marker switch, and it ships off. Without it the entry screens do not show the field — that is where to look when what is described here does not appear in your app. The Manage Markers screens work either way, and every entry still has its automatic marker regardless of the switch.
The four operations
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| Search Markers | Finds markers by text, period, category and type (all, automatic or added). Tapping a marker opens its detail: every entry under it, with sum and count. |
| Create / Edit Marker | Filters entries by category, text and dates and applies one marker to every item of the filter at once. This is how you tag a whole trip in a single step. |
| Change Markers | Renames: you select the markers affected and swap in the new text, adjusting the description of every entry involved. |
| Remove Markers | Strips the added marker from the selected entries. They don't end up without a marker: they go back to the automatic one derived from the description. |
The Manage Markers screen opens with a summary of how many added and how many automatic markers exist — a quick way to know whether you are using the feature or just inheriting the default.
Those four screens remain the way to work in blocks: the field on the entry handles one at a time, they handle the whole filter at once.
Marker or subcategory?
The question comes up every time something needs separating. The rule of thumb:
- If the division is permanent and vertical — fuel inside car, always — it is a subcategory.
- If it is temporary or horizontal — a trip that involves transport, food and lodging at once — it is a marker.
Markers don't inflate the category tree, don't show on the main screen and can be removed with no structural consequence. That is what makes them the right tool for anything with a beginning, a middle and an end.