Skip to main content

Internal base

Knowledge

Quick guides for using iowii.

Merchants and limits

Record the places you spend, set limits per purchase and per month, and get a warning when you go past them.

  1. 1

    Understand what they are for

    A merchant is somewhere you spend money — the supermarket, the petrol station, your phone provider. Recording them lets you set limits, see what you spend at each over time, and compare them against each other.

    TipThe link is by name: a merchant collects the transactions whose Merchant field carries the same name. Always write it the same way.

  2. 2

    Create a merchant

    Under New Entity you give a name and, if you want, two limits: a maximum per transaction and a monthly limit. Both are optional — you can record a merchant just to track what you spend there.

  3. 3

    Know what the limits do

    Limits warn, they do not block. When you log an expense at that merchant, going over the per-transaction maximum or pushing the month's total past the monthly limit shows a warning on the form — but the transaction still saves.

    TipLimits apply to expenses only. Income recorded against the same merchant never triggers a warning.

  4. 4

    Track the spending

    Each card shows a progress bar for the month against the limit, plus a chart of the last three months with the limit marked. At the top of the page, two charts compare every merchant: spend against limits, and this month against your historical average.

  5. 5

    Let AI suggest merchants

    AI Suggest reads your transaction descriptions and proposes merchants you have not recorded yet, with a suggested category and limits. You can register them one by one or all at once.

    TipThe suggestions are a starting point — the proposed limits come from your own history, so check them before accepting.

  6. 6

    Sort out repeated merchants

    If two merchants have nearly identical names — differing only in case, accents, or punctuation — iowii flags them and marks them Repeated. While they remain two, spending and limits are counted separately, which makes both figures look lower than they are.

    TipFix them at the transaction level: make the spelling consistent and delete the spare merchant. The warning clears once the names no longer collide.

  7. 7

    Find and manage the list

    Search filters by name, and the list paginates beyond ten merchants. Each card can be edited in place; deleting asks for confirmation.

    TipDeleting a merchant deletes no transactions — you only lose its limits and tracking. The name stays written on each transaction.

  8. 8

    Use merchants on mobile

    On mobile, the page has its own layout: total spend against limits sits in the coloured header, followed by AI Suggest, New Entity, and search. Each card shows its monthly progress and a three-month bar history — the two comparison charts from desktop do not appear, since each card already shows its own progress.