Categories are optional labels that can be used to group transactions to provide you better insights, set up accounting workflows, and more. Mercury suggests a list of categories for every business, which you can edit, add to, or use as is. You can choose where and how you surface them to employees to streamline accounting.
Key workflows for categories
- We suggest a list of categories for every business. You can edit that list by creating new categories for company-specific programs (like “Travel for conference” or “Health and wellness stipend” or “Hosting Fees”) or delete ones that aren’t relevant to your company.
- Edit the transaction types eligible for categories so you and your team can select them when submitting reimbursements, categorizing card transactions, or categorizing other money in or money out
- Automate with accounting. Streamline your end of month close by mapping categories to your GL codes.
Creating categories
- Click on your company name in the left-hand corner of your dashboard and click Settings
- Select Categories from the left hand side bar
- Click on Create Category
- If you’ve created tags, you’ll be able to copy these over as new categories
- Enter the name of the category and choose where employees will see them: for reimbursements, card spend, or other transactions (eg. ACH payments, Wires etc)
- Hit Save in order to save your new category and you’re all set
Managing categories
Editing
Edited category names will update across all previously categorized transactions. To edit category names:
- Navigate to Categories
- Click on the pencil icon for the existing category you’d like to edit
- Make the necessary edits and select Save
Deleting
Deleted categories won’t be available for future transactions, but will remain assigned to historical transactions. To delete a category:
- Navigate to Categories
- Click on the trash icon for the category you’d like to delete
- Select Yes, Delete and you’re all set
Applying categories
When submitting reimbursements
- Navigate to Reimbursements
- Click on “Submit Expense”
- Select the category from the Expense Category dropdown
- Fill out the rest of the details
- Click Review
- Select Submit
On the transactions page for all transactions
- Navigate to Transactions
- Click the transaction to categorize
- Select the category from the Category dropdown
- Fill out the other details as needed
- Exit the transaction and you’re all set
On the accounting page
- Navigate to Accounting
- Go to the Category column and select the category from the dropdown
- Fill out the other details as needed and you’re all set
Creating accounting rules for categories
Categories can be mapped to GL codes for accounting purposes.
GL codes are standardized codes used in accounting systems to classify and record every financial transaction. They correspond directly to your company’s Chart of Accounts and are essential for generating accurate financial statements like the balance sheet or income statement. For accounting and tax filings purposes, every single transaction must have a GL code.
If one of your categories is always mapped to a specific GL code, you can create a rule to do that automatically to every future transaction. With categorization rules in place, GL codes will be automatically applied to each transaction once a category is set, which you can review on the Accounting page before syncing transactions to your accounting tool.
- Navigate to Accounting
- Click on the gear near the upper right corner to open your accounting settings
- Click Create a Rule to get started
FAQs
How does this work with transaction tags?
Tags were launched as a beta feature in October of 2024, and categories were built to address some of the feedback we gathered from tags users. If you currently use tags, we’ll give you the option to copy those over as new categories. For historical transactions, we’ve preserved existing tags. Tags will still be searchable, so you’ll still be able to filter transactions by tags and reference tags in transaction exports as needed.
Are categories available on the mobile app?
Yes. While you can’t create or manage categories via mobile app, you can apply any that were previously created in the web app to your transactions and reimbursements.