At the moment, you can’t add new transaction categories in the Good Numbers app.
People often ask this when the standard categories don’t quite feel like they match the way money moves through their organisation. For example, you might want a category for things like cost recovery, reimbursement of expenses, or money received from participants to cover the real cost of an activity.
That makes sense. Small charities, clubs, societies and community groups often have money coming in and going out in ways that do not fit neatly into everyday business accounting language.
However, Good Numbers uses the standard XRB reporting categories required for year-end reporting to Charities Services and the Incorporated Societies Register. These are the categories your transactions need to be reported under in your annual performance report.
This means that even if we added a custom category, it would still need to be mapped back to one of the standard XRB categories at the end of the year.
See also: Understanding the XRB categories.
The Good Numbers app is designed to keep things as simple and streamlined as possible.
Allowing every organisation to create its own custom categories would add another layer of complexity, especially at year-end. It would mean you still need to understand how your custom categories fit into the required XRB reporting categories.
Instead, Good Numbers keeps the transaction categories aligned with the categories you need for your annual reporting.
This also helps you build confidence with the reporting categories over time, rather than working around them because they feel unfamiliar or imperfect.
Sometimes people want extra categories because they are thinking about different accounting treatments, such as separating day-to-day expenses from capital expenses. That distinction can be important in some accounting systems, but Tier 4 reporting is cash-based. This means Good Numbers is focused on reporting the money your organisation has received and paid during the year, using the required XRB cash-based categories.
See also: Cash versus accrual accounting.
The best approach is to choose the closest standard category for the transaction.
For example, money received to cover the cost of someone participating in an activity stills need to be treated as money in, even if it does not feel like a donation or payment for services. The right category will depend on what the money was for and how your organisation uses the XRB categories.
The most important thing is to be consistent.
If you choose a category that feels imperfect but reasonable for a particular type of transaction, it is usually best to keep using that same category month to month and year to year. Try not to use one category this month and a different category next month for the same kind of transaction.
Consistent category use makes your reporting easier to understand, easier to review, and more useful for your committee, board, funders, and future treasurers.
If you are unsure which category to use, you can leave the transaction for review or ask for help.
Instead of adding custom transaction categories, we are working on other ways to help you track money in ways that make more sense for small charities and non-profits.
For example, funding views help you track income and spending connected to a specific grant, contract, project, or funder requirement.
That means your transactions can still be reported under the correct XRB categories, while also giving you a more useful view of how money is being used for a particular purpose.
Over time, we expect to add more features like this, based on feedback from Good Numbers users.
Yes. If there is a type of transaction you regularly struggle to categorise, we still want to hear about it.
We may not add it as a custom category, but your feedback helps us improve our guidance, examples, and future tracking features.
Ask Duncan anything — big or small. He’ll get back to you ASAP, and your questions will help improve the information here for everyone.
