Trend reports
Learn how to use the Trend Report to track how your spending in any category changes over time and catch creeping expenses early.
Published June 7, 2026
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The Trend Report tracks how your spending in any category changes over time. Where the Spending Report gives you a snapshot, the Trend Report gives you the trajectory.
What it shows
The Trend Report displays a bar graph with one bar per month for the selected time period. Each bar is broken down by category group (color-coded), so you can see both the total spending and its composition at a glance.
A trendline overlays the bars, making it easy to see whether spending is climbing, holding steady, or declining.
How to read it
- Rising bars — you’re spending more month over month. Check which color segments are growing to identify the culprit.
- Flat bars — spending is stable. Your budget is holding.
- Falling bars — spending is decreasing. Could mean you’re cutting back intentionally, or that you had a one-time spike that normalized.
Filtering
The same three filters available across all reports apply here:
- Date range — pick a timeframe that gives you enough months to see a trend. Three months is the minimum for useful patterns; six to twelve months is ideal.
- Categories — isolate a single category group or individual category to focus your analysis.
- Accounts — narrow to a specific account if needed.
Drilling down
Click on any colored segment in a bar to drill into that category group. You’ll then see individual categories within that group, month by month. Click an individual category to view all transactions tied to it for a specific month.
Use the breadcrumb navigation at the top to move back up to the full view.
Practical uses
- Catching lifestyle creep — filter to discretionary categories (Dining, Entertainment, Shopping) over 6 months. If the trendline slopes up, your “fun money” is growing whether you planned for it or not.
- Validating a cutback — after deciding to reduce spending somewhere, check back in 2–3 months to confirm the trend is actually moving in the right direction.
- Seasonal awareness — a 12-month view reveals natural peaks (December holidays, summer travel) so you can plan category funding ahead of time next year.
- Grocery budgeting — food costs tend to creep. Isolate your Groceries category and track it over time to decide whether your budget amount needs adjusting.
Tips
- The Trend Report works best with at least 3 months of transaction data. If you just started, give it time to build up history.
- Short timeframes (1 month) won’t show useful trends — use the Spending Report for single-month analysis instead.
- Pair this with Auto-Categorization to ensure your transactions are consistently categorized, which makes trend data more reliable.