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    Automatic expense categorization

    Every receipt, every bank charge, every Stripe payout — tagged to the right category, automatically. Stop spending Sundays on bookkeeping.

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    2 seconds per transaction

    AI categorizes the moment a transaction lands in your account.

    Schedule C-mapped

    Every category lines up with the IRS form so tax time is one click.

    Learns your patterns

    Correct it once and it remembers forever. Accuracy climbs from 85% to 95% in weeks.

    How AI decides the category

    Merchant name

    'Adobe Creative Cloud' is software. 'Delta Air Lines' is travel. 'Whole Foods' is meals (or groceries — depends on your business). The model has trained on millions of merchant→category pairs.

    Amount + frequency

    A recurring $9.99 monthly charge is almost always a subscription. A $4,200 one-time charge is more likely equipment or a flight.

    Line items (from receipts)

    If a Costco run shows printer paper + monitor + protein bars, the AI splits the printer paper into Office Supplies, monitor into Equipment, and asks about the protein bars.

    Your history

    If you've tagged Starbucks as 'Client Meetings' 5 times in a row, it stops asking. You're the boss; the AI just listens.

    Manual vs automatic — the math

    TaskManualAI auto
    Time per transaction15–30 sec<2 sec
    200 transactions/month~90 min~5 min review
    Year-end catch-upWhole weekend20 min
    Accuracy100% if focused, ~70% when tired~95% after training
    Consistency across yearsDriftsStable

    Categories SnapBooks recognizes out of the box

    Office Supplies
    Software & Subscriptions
    Vehicle Expenses
    Travel
    Meals
    Marketing & Advertising
    Professional Services
    Insurance
    Utilities
    Rent / Lease
    Equipment
    Education
    Bank & Card Fees
    Internet & Phone
    Home Office
    Contract Labor
    Taxes & Licenses
    Other

    Plus unlimited custom categories. Every one maps to a Schedule C line.

    Get back your weekends

    Connect a bank or scan a receipt — SnapBooks does the rest. Free 7-day trial, $15/mo flat.

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    Frequently asked questions

    What is automatic expense categorization?

    It's software that looks at every transaction — bank charges, credit-card swipes, receipt scans — and assigns it the right expense category (Meals, Travel, Software, Vehicle, etc.) without you tagging it manually. Modern AI-based categorization hits ~90% accuracy out of the box and ~95% after learning your patterns.

    How does AI auto-categorization actually work?

    Three signals: (1) the merchant name ('Adobe' → Software, 'Delta' → Travel), (2) the transaction amount and pattern (recurring $9.99 → Subscription), (3) what you tagged similar transactions as before. Combined, the model picks the most likely category and lets you correct it — and learns from the correction.

    Is auto-categorization accurate enough for taxes?

    Yes — at ~95% accuracy after training, it's actually more consistent than manual entry (people get tired and start lumping everything into 'Miscellaneous'). The right workflow: AI does the first pass, you review the 5% that's unclear at month-end. 90 minutes a month vs 90 minutes a day.

    Will it auto-categorize my old transactions?

    Yes. Once you connect a bank or upload a CSV, it categorizes the full history — usually 90 days to 2 years depending on the bank's export. Useful for catching up before tax season.

    Can I create custom categories?

    Yes. Most apps come with the standard Schedule C categories (Office, Vehicle, Meals, etc.) plus let you add custom ones — e.g. 'Client A Project', 'Conference 2026'. The AI learns the custom categories the same way as default ones.

    What about split transactions?

    If a single Costco run was 60% business, 40% personal, you can split it and the AI remembers. Next Costco trip it asks 'split like last time?' and one tap confirms it.

    Does it work with personal + business cards mixed?

    Yes. You mark each transaction as Business or Personal, and over time the model learns which merchants are usually which (Spotify = personal, Adobe = business) and pre-sorts them.

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