The cells that are not yours

The simplest rule in the workbook: white cells are yours, tinted cells are the workbook's, and the bank's three columns stay as they came.

4 min Habits Workbook

Your workbook may look different. If there is no brown band of buttons along the top, use the Money Mastery menu in the menu bar above your workbook. The names are a little different there: Categorize is Categorize Transactions, Reports is Clarity AI & Reports, Dashboard is Open Dashboard, and Start Here is Getting Started.

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The video for this page is being made. The written steps below are the same ones it shows.

Read the transcript

Hi again. Today the simplest rule in the workbook: which cells are yours to type in, and which ones the workbook fills for you.

Click any account tab. The first three columns, date, description and amount, came from your bank file. Leave them as they are.

Further along the row are tinted columns. The workbook fills those from your label: the main category, the group. You never type in them.

Click one anyway, and type a letter. A warning appears: this cell is calculated, are you sure. Click Cancel. The cell is as it was. The warning is there to protect your reports.

The white cells are yours: the label, need or desire, the memo. Those are the ones Categorize writes to, and the ones you can type in by hand.

Click the Monthly Overview tab. Everything here is tinted. Nothing on this tab is typed; it is all drawn from the rows.

If a number on a tinted tab looks wrong, go back to the row it came from and fix the white cell there. The tinted one follows.

If you ever do type over a tinted cell by accident and click OK, press Control Z.

The bank's columns are the bank's. The tinted columns are the workbook's. The white cells are yours. If a tinted cell looks wrong, the fix is on a white cell somewhere, never on the tinted one.

The tint is the same colour on every tab, so you can tell at a glance, on a tab you have never opened, which cells are waiting for you and which are already done.

White is yours. Tinted is the workbook's. That is the whole rule. See you in the next one.

Hi again. Today the simplest rule in the workbook: which cells are yours to type in, and which ones the workbook fills for you.

Step by step

Click any account tab

The first three columns, date, description and amount, came from your bank file. Leave them as they are.
Further along the row are tinted columns

The workbook fills those from your label: the main category, the group. You never type in them.
Click one anyway, and type a letter

A warning appears: this cell is calculated, are you sure. Click Cancel. The cell is as it was. The warning is there to protect your reports.
The white cells are yours: the label, need or desire, the memo

Those are the ones Categorize writes to, and the ones you can type in by hand.
Click the Monthly Overview tab

Everything here is tinted. Nothing on this tab is typed; it is all drawn from the rows.
If a number on a tinted tab looks wrong, go back to the row it came from and fix the white cell there

The tinted one follows.
If you ever do type over a tinted cell by accident and click OK, press Control Z

The idea behind it

The bank's columns are the bank's. The tinted columns are the workbook's. The white cells are yours. If a tinted cell looks wrong, the fix is on a white cell somewhere, never on the tinted one.

Worth knowing

The tint is the same colour on every tab, so you can tell at a glance, on a tab you have never opened, which cells are waiting for you and which are already done.

Remember

White is yours. Tinted is the workbook's. That is the whole rule. See you in the next one.

Up next, Chapter 5

Where everything lives