How To Use Splync — Set Your Categories and Budgets

In the previous article, we explored how to start creating a project. Your project has been named, the currency has been defined, and you’ve added members with their split ratios. Now you’re ready for the next step: Categories & Budget settings. Categories are the heart of your project. They tell you what you’re spending for, not just how much. In daily life, they may be House Rent, Grocery, Utilities, or Education. During travel, they may be Accommodation, Transportation, Fun Activities, and so on. The list can change completely depending on your purpose. That’s why categories in Splync are fully customizable.

A category is more than a label; it helps you express what matters in your shared life. By choosing the right categories, you shape the rhythm of your project — and create a clearer picture of how money should support your plans. Splync provides hundreds of category icons and colors so that you can enjoy analyzing your spending visually. In daily life, money disappears fastest when it disappears quietly — a little food here, a bit of transportation there — until suddenly you’ve crossed a line you never meant to cross. Splync’s category system is designed to prevent exactly that kind of silent drift. By naming, shaping, and coloring the categories that matter to your shared purpose, you give your project a simple map — a way to see at a glance where your money should go, and whether it’s supporting the life you want to build.

Can you clearly tell how much you’re spending on electricity, water, or gas? Many people can. But what about food? How much goes to groceries, and how much to eating out? Some people know, but not everyone. And here is a harder question: What percentage of your total household spending does each category actually take up — and are those numbers healthy for you? By nature, some types of expenses are easy to overlook. They scatter across daily life in small pieces, and before you know it, they grow into a quiet burden. Category budgets in Splync are designed to bring those hidden patterns into the light. Besides category names, icons, and colors, you can also set per-category budgets. Splync helps you understand, both numerically and visually, how much you’re spending and where your money is going. In shared projects, budgets play an additional role: they help every member stay aligned in how the group should evaluate and manage spending within each category.

Since Splync v1.5, project members can define split shares for each category on top of the overall project shares. This gives you far more flexibility in designing a financial arrangement that actually reflects your shared life. For example, suppose you and your partner set your project-wide split at 60:40 because your current income is higher and your partner is doing more house chores. That works well for most expenses, but you might feel uncomfortable paying a higher share for Eating Out if your partner goes to restaurants, cafés, and bars almost every day. In that case, the two of you can discuss the purpose of that category and set a per-category share, such as 20:80, so the distribution better reflects your expectations. On the other hand, your partner might have zero interest in your spending on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney+. In that situation, you might decide to split the Subscriptions category 100:0, meaning you take full responsibility for those costs. Per-category shares allow you to fine-tune your project so that each type of spending aligns with the values and habits of its members — a more intentional way of sharing money, and a clearer path toward shared happiness. In the near future, we plan to introduce per-expense shares for even greater flexibility in how each cost can be divided.

In the Categories & Budgets section, you can select a project type — Basic, Travel, Party, or Business. This bar exists to help you start quickly with a set of default categories. But no preset can perfectly match your unique needs, so you can simply ignore it and continue customizing everything freely. The interface is designed to feel intuitive, but if you ever feel lost, tap the information button to open the Q&A sheet. You can drag a category up or down using the three horizontal bars. Edit the category name or budget value whenever you need to. To change a category’s split share so it differs from the project-wide default, tap the pie-chart symbol. And of course, the trash-can icon deletes the category. Once you’ve carefully set your categories and budgets, save your project — and enjoy sharing your financial journey with the people who matter.

With your categories organized, your budgets defined, and your shares fine-tuned, your project has finally come to life — not just a place to record expenses, but a small financial philosophy of its own. Every category you created reflects how you want to live, and every share you set reflects how you want to share that life with others. Splync turns money from something vague into something visible, intentional, and collaborative. You’ve built the foundation. In the next article, we’ll walk through adding your first expense — the moment your project starts to move.