# Labels

Labels are flexible tags you put on transactions. A category says what kind of spending something is; a label says which of your things it belongs to.

## Labels or categories

A transaction has exactly one [category](https://whisper.money/documentation/categories) and any number of labels. That difference is the whole point of having both.

Reach for a label when a group of transactions cuts across categories: a holiday that was flights, restaurants and taxis; a flat renovation that was tools, furniture and a plumber; the expenses you will bill to a client.

Reach for a category when you want the transaction to land somewhere in your reports. Labels do not appear in the cashflow report — they are for filtering and for budgets.

## Managing them

Labels live in **Settings → Labels**. Each one has a name and a colour, and the list can be filtered by name once there are enough of them to need it.

![The labels settings screen, listing each label with its colour badge next to a button for creating a new one](https://whisper.money/docs/documentation/labels-settings.png)

There are twenty colours to choose from. The colour is what makes a label readable at a glance in the transaction list, so it is worth spending a moment on: one colour per area of your life beats twenty labels in twenty colours.

You can also create a label without leaving the transaction you are editing. It appears in the settings list afterwards like any other.

## What labels are good for

- **Filtering.** Filter the transaction list by label to see everything belonging to one project, trip or person.
- **Saved filters.** A label plus a date range, saved, is a report you can open in one click.
- **Budgets.** A budget can track a label instead of a category, which is how you put a ceiling on something that spans categories.
- **Automation rules.** A rule can attach a label as well as set a category, so a recurring merchant labels itself.
- **Bulk actions.** Select a group of transactions and label them all at once.

## Deleting a label

Deleting a label removes it from the transactions that carried it. The transactions themselves are untouched — their amounts, dates and categories are unaffected — but anything that was matching on that label stops matching, including a budget that tracked it.

If a label is simply the wrong name, rename it instead. Renaming keeps every transaction attached.

## FAQ

### How many labels should I have?

Few enough to remember. A label you have to look up is a label you will not use, and an unused label makes the list harder to read for the ones you do use.

### Can a transaction have two labels?

Yes, as many as you like. That is the difference from categories.

### A label I did not create is on a transaction.

An automation rule attached it. The rule that did it is listed in [Automation rules](https://whisper.money/documentation/automation-rules), where you can change or remove the label from its actions.

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Full documentation index: https://whisper.money/documentation.md?lang=en