The budget that doesn't track categories is a budget that tells you how much you spent but not where it went. The two numbers — total income, total expenses — are easy enough to know from a bank statement. What's harder, and what actually changes behaviour, is knowing that you spent twice as much on Catégorie Loisirs (leisure/entertainment) as on Catégorie Logement (housing) last quarter, and that Catégorie Voiture (vehicle) has been running 40% over budget for six months while Catégorie Remboursements Médicaux (medical reimbursements) income has been lower than expected.
The Income Side
Catégorie Salaire (salary), Catégorie Rbt Médicaux (medical reimbursements), Catégorie Vente Web (web sales), and Catégorie Jeux Cadeaux (games/gifts) are the income categories. For a household with employment income, reimbursement income from health insurance, and secondary income from online sales or occasional gifts, these categories don't all behave the same way.
Salary income is predictable. Medical reimbursement income is variable and delayed — the expense occurs months before the reimbursement arrives, creating a cash flow gap that needs to be managed. Web sales income is entirely variable by month. Tracking each source separately against Montant revenus (income amount) on the transaction date shows the actual income pattern and identifies months where the total looks acceptable but the mix is unfavorable — a month where salary is normal but a large medical reimbursement hasn't arrived yet creates a cash position that the total monthly figure doesn't reveal.
The Expense Taxonomy
Catégorie Crédit (credit payments), Catégorie Voiture (vehicle), Catégorie Logement (housing), Catégorie Assurance (insurance), Catégorie Téléphone (phone), Catégorie Santé (health), Catégorie Transport (transport), Catégorie Impôts Frais (taxes/fees), and Catégorie Syndicats (union dues) are the committed/fixed expense categories — the payments that happen every month within a predictable range.
Catégorie Magasins (stores/shopping) and Catégorie Loisirs (leisure) are the variable expense categories that carry the discretionary spending. These two categories combined show how much of the monthly budget goes to optional spending versus committed obligations. The ratio between committed expenses and discretionary spending is the financial breathing room indicator — and it's invisible until you have consistent category tracking across multiple months.
Transaction-Level Detail
Banques (banks) and Banque Retrait (bank withdrawal) with Paiement par (payment method) and Chèque numéro (cheque number) bring the transaction to the level where reconciliation is possible. A cheque number in the record ties the budget entry to the bank statement line. Paiement par distinguishes between a debit transaction, a credit card transaction, a cash withdrawal, and a bank transfer — each of which has different timing implications for when the money leaves the account versus when the obligation was incurred.
Montant revenus, Montant dépenses, and Montant Retrait are the three financial flows on each record date. Separating withdrawals from expenses captures the cash taken out for in-kind spending that doesn't generate electronic transaction records — cash at markets, casual payments, situations where the money was taken out as cash and then spent across multiple small transactions. The withdrawal amount is the cash budget.
Notes is where the anomaly context lives — the expense that was unusually high because of the car repair, the month the medical reimbursement finally cleared after a six-week wait, the one-time purchase that distorts a category's typical range. Without notes, every anomaly in the category data looks like a pattern when reviewed months later.