Hostfolio uses categories (e.g. Rental Income, Cleaning, Bank & Mortgage, Operating Expenses) to compute KPIs and to build export reports. Transactions need to be assigned to a category; you can do this manually by description and/or by defining rules that assign categories automatically.
- Yields and cash flow — Income and expenses are summed by category. Rental income, maintenance, bank fees, etc. are used for gross/net yield and cash flow.
- Exports — Exported CSV/Excel groups amounts by category (e.g. “Rental Income”, “Maintenance”) so you or your accountant can use them for tax or reporting.
- Excluded — The Excluded category (“not to calculate”) is ignored in yield and cash flow so one-off or personal items don’t distort the numbers.
Hostfolio comes with categories such as:
- Rental Income — Rent received.
- Cleaning — Cleaning-related expenses.
- Bank & Mortgage — Bank fees, mortgage interest, loan costs.
- Local Credit — Refunds, deposits returned, etc.
- Personal Credit — Personal money in (e.g. you topping up the account).
- Operating Expenses — Repairs, maintenance, insurance, utilities, etc.
- Software & Tools — Apps, software, tools used for the property.
- Excluded — Not included in yields or cash flow (e.g. personal purchases, one-off transfers).
- Uncategorized — Default for new transactions until you assign something.
You can add custom categories in Configuration → Categories and rules (Pro may have higher limits; free tier has a limit on custom categories).
In Manage properties, after selecting a property and a CSV (not “all”):
- Open the Categorization tab.
- You see a list of unique descriptions with counts and total amount.
- Use the dropdown (or selector) next to each description to set its category.
- This applies to all transactions that share that description (current CSV). So “Airbnb payout” → Rental Income once, and every “Airbnb payout” line gets that category.
- Filter: “Uncategorized only” — Leave this on to focus on lines that still need a category; turn it off to see or adjust everything.
Tip: Start with the descriptions that have the most transactions or the largest amounts. Once you set a category, consider adding a rule (see below) so the next import auto-categorizes the same description.
Rules assign a category when a transaction’s description contains a certain keyword.
- Go to Configuration in the sidebar.
- Open the Categories and rules tab.
- For each category you care about, add keywords.
- Example: for Rental Income, add “Airbnb”, “payout”, “rent”.
- Example: for Bank & Mortgage, add “interest”, “fee”, “UBS”, “mortgage”.
- When you import (or re-import) a CSV, Hostfolio applies these rules: if the description contains a keyword, the transaction gets the corresponding category.
- Manual overrides (from the Categorization tab) are stored per CSV and take precedence over rules. So you can refine specific descriptions without changing global rules.
Rules are global (same for all properties/CSVs). Manual overrides are per CSV.
Some income or expenses don’t come from the bank CSV (e.g. cash rent, a refund you didn’t receive via that account). You can add them manually:
- In Manage properties, select the property and the relevant CSV (or the CSV that “represents” that property period).
- Open the Custom entries tab.
- Add an entry: description, amount, Credit or Debit, category, and date/month.
- These entries are included in analysis and exports like normal transactions.
If one specific transaction (same description as others) must have a different category, you can override it by transaction (e.g. by date/amount) in the transaction list. The app may show this as “single entry override” or similar. That override wins over both rules and description-based overrides.
- Do categorization early — After your first import, spend a few minutes in the Categorization tab and in Configuration (rules). Later imports will need much less manual work.
- Use Excluded for non-property items — So they don’t affect yields or cash flow.
- Back up — Exports and (if you use them) original CSVs are your backup; categorization is stored in the app’s local data.
Next: Portfolio analysis and Configuration.