Categorization, Transfers, Recurring, and Cashflow: Which One Do You Need?
An orientation to the four bank-statement analyses in DocuClipper. What each one does, when to use it, and how they fit together once your transactions are extracted.
After DocuClipper extracts transactions from a bank statement, four separate analyses are available on top of that data: Categorization, Transfers, Recurring Transactions, and Cashflow. They answer different questions, and you do not need to run all of them. This page is a short orientation so you can pick the right one (or the right combination) for what you are trying to learn.
If you are wondering why these are not all run automatically when you extract a statement, see Why Categorization, Transfers, and Recurring Are Manual.
Quick reference
| Analysis | Question it answers | Typical user |
|---|---|---|
| Categorization | What did the money go to? (groceries, payroll, software, etc.) | Bookkeepers, owners reviewing spend |
| Transfers | Which transactions are just money moving between my own accounts? | Anyone with two or more accounts in the same project |
| Recurring | What is repeating every week, two weeks, or month? | Subscription audits, payroll review, budgeting |
| Cashflow | How did my balance and net flow trend over time? | Lenders, owners reviewing a period at a glance |
Categorization
What it does. Tags each transaction with a category (Office, Payroll, Rent, Software, etc.) using keyword rules. You can use the built-in default category set, build your own categories, or upload a vendor CSV to bulk-categorize.
When to use it. Any time you need to know what the money was spent on, not just how much moved. Bookkeepers use it before pushing to QuickBooks Online or Xero so the right account is hit. Owners use it for a quick "where did it go" view of a period.
Good to know. Categorization is the foundation that the other three analyses get more useful with. Cashflow charts make more sense when expenses are categorized; recurring lists are easier to act on when categories are filled in.
See: How DocuClipper Transaction Categorization Works.
Transfers
What it does. Detects transactions that are the same money moving between two accounts you own (for example, a $5,000 transfer out of checking on the same day a $5,000 transfer in lands in savings). You approve, reject, or manually pair transfers that the auto-detect missed.
When to use it. Whenever a project has two or more accounts (checking + savings, operating + payroll, business + personal). Without transfer matching, that $5,000 looks like a $5,000 expense on one account and a $5,000 deposit on the other, and Cashflow double-counts both. Transfers cancel them out.
Good to know. Transfers analysis only does anything useful if the project has more than one account. If you only uploaded a single statement for a single account, skip it.
See: Transfers Analysis.
Recurring transactions
What it does. Groups transactions that repeat at a regular cadence (weekly, biweekly, monthly) into a single recurring series, like "Netflix monthly $15.99" or "Payroll biweekly $14,200."
When to use it. Subscription audits, payroll review, recurring rent or loan checks, budgeting. It is also a fast way to spot a charge that is still hitting the account after you cancelled the service.
Good to know. Recurring is independent of categorization. You can find recurring patterns even on uncategorized data. But categorizing first makes the recurring list much more readable ("Software, recurring monthly" vs "ACME ACH BILL 4471").
See: Recurring Transactions Analysis.
Cashflow
What it does. Two charts: balance over time, and income vs expenses over time. Filters by date range and account.
When to use it. When the question is at the period level rather than the transaction level. "How did the account balance trend over the last six months?" "Were expenses higher than income in March?" Lenders and owners use this for a single-page view of a period.
Good to know. Cashflow numbers are more accurate after Transfers analysis is run, because intra-account transfers are removed from the income/expense tally. If you have multiple accounts in the project, run Transfers first.
See: Cashflow Analysis.
A reasonable order
You do not have to run them in any particular order, and you do not have to run all four. But if you are doing a thorough monthly close on a project with multiple accounts, this order works well:
- Categorization so every transaction has a category.
- Transfers so internal account-to-account moves are paired and excluded from spend.
- Recurring to confirm subscriptions and payroll cadence.
- Cashflow for the period-level view, now clean of double-counted transfers and uncategorized noise.
For a single-account project (one statement, one account), you can skip step 2.