> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ai2fin.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Lenses — switch between views of your money without re-categorising

> Lenses let you slice your transactions by Tax, Project, Client, Department, or any custom axis — without ever re-tagging a single transaction. Pick a perspective from the top bar; every page re-pivots.

## What Lenses solves

You categorise a transaction once. But the way you *want to look* at your money changes constantly:

* At tax time you need it grouped by **deductible buckets**.
* During a project review you need to see **only ClientX's expenses**.
* Mid-month you want a quick scan of **just personal spending**.
* At end-of-year you want a side-by-side **freelance vs. employed income** breakdown.

Without Lenses, that means either re-tagging hundreds of transactions, exporting four CSVs into a spreadsheet, or building four parallel category trees and keeping them in sync forever.

**Lenses fix this with one move:** you keep a single category on each transaction, then pick a *Lens* in the top bar. Every page — Insight+, Expenses, Bills, Allocations, Travel — re-pivots instantly to that perspective. Switch back, and you're seeing the full view again. Nothing was edited. No data was moved.

<Card title="Open Lenses" icon="layer-group" href="https://app.ai2fin.com/#/categories" horizontal>
  Manage your Lenses on the Categories page → Lenses tab. Switch the active Lens from the **View** pill in the top bar.
</Card>

<Info>
  Lenses are available on **Elite+ and Auto+** plans. Free, Basic, and Pro accounts use a single (Tax) Lens — the switcher pill is hidden so the UI stays uncluttered.
</Info>

## The mental model in 30 seconds

A **Category** is a single bucket — *Groceries*, *Software*, *Office Rent*. A transaction has one Category. That's unchanged.

A **Lens** is a *selection* of Categories you've grouped together so you can flip the whole app's view to "just this slice." A Lens has a name, a colour, an icon, and a list of which Categories belong to it.

When a Lens is active, every page filters its data to only the transactions whose Category is in that Lens's list. When you switch to **All**, no filter applies — you see everything.

That's it. There's no second categorisation layer to maintain. No tagging needed beyond what you already do.

## Worked examples

Pick the pattern that matches your life. The Categories page ships templates for each.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Freelancer / Contractor" icon="briefcase">
    **Problem:** Your side gig income and expenses get tangled with personal spend. Tax season is a guess-and-check.

    **Lens setup:**

    * **Freelance**: *Client Income · Software Subscriptions · Home Office · Co-working · Professional Development*
    * **Personal**: *Groceries · Rent · Utilities · Dining · Travel*
    * **Tax** (default): everything together for the full ATO picture

    **Daily use:** "Freelance" lens to see how much you billed this month minus business costs. "Tax" lens at end-of-FY for the full return.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-property Landlord" icon="house">
    **Problem:** Three rental properties. Each has its own rates bill, repairs, insurance. You need P\&L per property for the tax return.

    **Lens setup:**

    * **123 Smith St**: just that property's categories
    * **45 Park Ave**: that property's categories
    * **17 Bayview Rd**: that property's categories
    * **Tax**: all properties + your other deductible expenses

    **Daily use:** Switch to a single property's Lens to scan its net yield. Switch to Tax to see the consolidated deductible picture.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Side Hustle (E-commerce)" icon="store">
    **Problem:** You run a Shopify store on the side. COGS, ad spend, packaging, refunds — none of it should bleed into your day-job tax view.

    **Lens setup:**

    * **E-commerce**: *Shopify Fees · Ads · Inventory · Packaging · Returns · Sales*
    * **Day Job**: salary deductions, commuting, work-from-home costs
    * **Tax**: full unified view for the return

    **Daily use:** E-commerce lens for store P\&L. Tax lens at year-end for everything in one place.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Family Budget Split" icon="users">
    **Problem:** Joint account. You want to see your spending and your partner's spending separately without splitting accounts.

    **Lens setup:**

    * **Mine**: categories you mostly spend in
    * **Theirs**: categories they mostly spend in
    * **Shared**: groceries, mortgage, utilities, kids
    * **Tax**: the full household for joint return

    **Daily use:** Quick weekly check on each person's discretionary spend. Tax lens for the year.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What changes when you switch a Lens

The same data, re-pivoted across the whole app. Nothing needs a refresh — switch the View pill and every page updates to the new perspective instantly.

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Insight+" icon="chart-line">
    **Cash flow, trends, budget-vs-actual** all narrow to the Lens's categories. Charts re-pivot in place.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Expenses" icon="receipt">
    **KPI cards** (Total / Tax Deductible / Deductible Rate), the **bar chart**, the **3D category chart**, and the **transaction list** all re-filter together.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Bills" icon="repeat">
    **Recurring patterns** narrow to those whose category is in the active Lens. Counts and totals re-compute.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Allocations" icon="wallet">
    **Budget rows** narrow to the Lens's categories. Set a "Freelance" Lens and your budget header is just the freelance limits.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Travel Expenses" icon="car">
    **Trip records** filter by their assigned category. Untagged trips drop out — set them up via the trip edit dialog.
  </Card>

  <Card title="All Transactions" icon="table">
    The **list** narrows to the Lens's categories, combined with any column filters you've already set. Your pagination and sort stay put.
  </Card>
</Columns>

## What Lenses do NOT do

Set the expectation so the abstraction stays trustworthy:

* **Lenses don't move money.** Switching from Tax to Freelance doesn't change a single transaction's category, amount, or date.
* **Lenses don't affect tax reports filed.** The ATO myDeductions export is always pulled from the **Tax** Lens (your authoritative compliance view) regardless of which Lens you're currently viewing.
* **Lenses don't change your raw imports.** The Bank Transactions page (your raw CSV/PDF uploads) is organised by import, not by category, so it ignores the Lens pill on purpose.
* **Lenses don't replace Categories.** A Category is still the unit a transaction is tagged with. A Lens is a *grouping of Categories* you can switch between.
* **Lenses don't tag automatically.** A transaction shows up in a Lens because its Category is part of that Lens. To make a transaction appear in a different Lens, change its Category (one click in any transaction list).

## How to use it

### Create your first custom Lens

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open Categories">
    From the sidebar, **Personalize → Categories**. You'll land on the **Categories** tab by default.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Switch to the Lenses tab">
    Click the **Lenses** tab at the top. You'll see your existing default Lens (usually called *General* or *Tax*) plus a list of tabs for each active Lens.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Click 'Add Lens' or pick a template">
    Either start from scratch with **+ Create Lens** or pick a template (Freelancer, Multi-property, E-commerce, etc.) that ships with sensible default categories you can edit.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add categories to the Lens">
    Pick which Categories belong in this Lens. A Category can belong to more than one Lens (Groceries can sit in both *Personal* and *Tax*, for example) — there's no exclusivity rule.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save and switch">
    Hit **Save**. The new Lens appears in the top-bar **View** dropdown immediately. Click it to make it your active view.
  </Step>
</Steps>

### Switch between Lenses

<Card title="The View pill" icon="layer-group">
  The pill in the top-right of the AppBar (between the date filter and your avatar) is the switcher. It shows whichever Lens is currently active. Click it to open the dropdown.
</Card>

The dropdown shows:

* **All** — special "no filter" view (everything across all Lenses)
* Your active Lenses, sorted with **current first, primary second, then alphabetical**
* A **Default** chip on your primary Lens (the one that loads on first sign-in each day)
* An **Empty** chip on any Lens that has zero Categories — disabled with a one-click "Add categories" link to fix it

Each Lens row shows its Category count, so you can tell at a glance how broad each view is.

### Set your primary (default) Lens

Your primary Lens is what loads when you first sign in or open a new tab. To change it:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Lens you want as primary">
    Go to **Categories → Lenses → \[your Lens]** tab.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Mark it as primary">
    Use the **Make Primary** action on the Lens management card. The "Default" chip will move to your new primary.
  </Step>
</Steps>

### "Untagged" categories

When you're on the Lenses tab, you'll see an **Untagged** subtab that collects Categories that aren't part of any Lens. These never show up when a specific Lens is active (they have no Lens to be filtered into) — but they DO appear under **All** mode.

Use the **Untagged** subtab as your sorting hospital — drag categories from there into the Lens that suits them, and they'll start appearing in that Lens's filtered views.

## Real-world tips

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Start with one Lens, add more when you feel the friction">
    Don't try to design five Lenses up-front. The default Tax Lens covers almost every user. Add a second one only when you find yourself wishing you could "see just my X without my Y" — that wish is your signal to make a new Lens.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Overlap is fine — Categories can live in multiple Lenses">
    *Groceries* can sit in **Personal** AND **Tax** AND **Family Budget**. There's no exclusivity rule. Lenses are a viewing index, not a folder hierarchy.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Use 'All' to verify you're not missing something">
    If you switch to a Lens and the numbers look low, swap to **All** for a sanity check. Discrepancies usually mean you have transactions in Categories that aren't yet in your Lens — easy fix in the Categories tab.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Name Lenses by perspective, not by data">
    Good: *Freelance*, *Tax*, *Project ClientX*, *Personal*.
    Awkward: *Q3 2026 expenses*, *Things to deduct*. Lenses are perspectives — name them like roles you wear, not like reports you'd export.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="An empty Lens is harmless — but selecting it shows everything">
    A Lens with zero Categories is treated as "no filter" (same as **All**) so you never see a blank-page dead-end. The dropdown disables empty user-created Lenses and offers an "Add categories" link to fix them.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="I switched Lens and the numbers didn't change">
    Check two things:

    1. **Does the Lens you switched to actually have different Categories from the previous one?** If both Lenses contain the same Categories, you'll see the same data — that's correct behaviour. The Categories page → Lenses tab shows you exactly which Categories are in each.

    2. **Are you on a page that's Lens-aware?** Lenses filter Insight+, Expenses, Bills, Allocations, Travel, All Transactions, and the Categories page itself. Settings, Tax Export, Bank Transactions, and marketing pages ignore the Lens pill on purpose.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The View pill is missing">
    The pill only shows on Lens-aware pages (see the list above). On pages where Lenses have no effect, the pill is hidden so it never invites a no-op click.

    If you're on a Lens-aware page and still don't see it: your plan tier might not include Lenses (Free / Basic / Pro). Upgrade to **Elite+** or **Auto+** to unlock the switcher.

    On mobile / narrow viewports, the pill shrinks to a circular icon button (matching the date filter chrome). Same dropdown, smaller trigger.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A Lens is greyed out in the dropdown">
    That Lens has zero Categories. Selecting it would no-op (showing all transactions, same as **All**), so we disable it and show an inline **Add categories** link. Click that link to jump to the Categories page and populate the Lens.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My deactivated Lens disappeared from the switcher">
    Inactive Lenses are hidden from the switcher dropdown (they'd be unselectable anyway). To bring one back, open **Categories → Lenses tab** and toggle it back to active. The footer of the switcher dropdown shows "N inactive sets hidden" as a reminder, with a one-click "Manage views →" link.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A trip / bill I just created isn't showing up under my Lens">
    Trips and bills are filtered by their assigned Category. When you create a new one while a non-default Lens is active, the dialog pre-selects that Lens's first Category — but you can pick any Category. If your trip / bill is assigned to a Category that isn't in the current Lens, it won't appear. Switch to **All** to confirm it exists, then re-categorise if needed.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## How Lenses fit with the rest of the app

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Categories" icon="tags" href="/features/categories">
    Categories are the unit of tagging. Lenses are groupings of Categories. You manage both on the **Categories** page.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Custom Rules" icon="filter" href="/features/custom-rules">
    Rules categorise incoming transactions automatically. Once tagged, those transactions flow into whichever Lenses contain their Category — no separate Lens routing needed.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Allocations" icon="wallet" href="/features/allocations">
    Set budget limits per Category. With a Lens active, the Allocations page shows only the limits relevant to that perspective — your "Freelance" budget separates cleanly from the household one.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Insight+" icon="chart-line" href="/features/insight-plus">
    Cash flow, trends, and budget-vs-actual charts pivot live with the active Lens. The Lens becomes a second axis on top of the date filter.
  </Card>
</Columns>

***

**Ready to set up your first Lens?** Open the [Categories page](https://app.ai2fin.com/#/categories), click the **Lenses** tab, and pick a template — Freelancer, Multi-property, or E-commerce. Or start blank and define your own.

**Related features:**

* [Categories](/features/categories) — the unit of tagging that Lenses group together
* [Custom Rules](/features/custom-rules) — automated categorisation that feeds your Lenses
* [Insight+](/features/insight-plus) — charts and trends that pivot per Lens
* [Allocations](/features/allocations) — per-Lens budgets

*Lenses — categorise once, view your money any way you need.*