# Analytics by category over time periods **URL:** \ **Category:** Feedback & Ideas\ **Created:** [October 15, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193 "2019-10-15T18:56:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sinmok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@Sinmok](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Sinmok)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/1 "2019-10-15T18:56:06Z")
Hi, I really like the app! One of the things that I’d really like to be able to do is to get summaries of my spending based on entire _categories_ and be able to see reports for the spending over a **variable time range**. For example, I’d love to know much I have spent on “Bills” or a custom category such as “Lunch at work” - In the last 3 months - In the last 6 months - In the last year - Beginning of time - Between X date and X date You could then further break down this category summary into merchants within this category. So for example, in the last 6 months: I have spent £500 on the “Lunch” category Within “Lunch” I have spent - £100 at Tesco - £50 at McDonalds - £50 at Greggs - £300 at Subway The monthly analytics breaks this down for you already, but you can only see month-by-month. The ability to breakdown by a custom range would be really useful so I could get yearly reports on what I’m spending my money on. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 10:22am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/2 "2019-10-17T10:22:50Z")
Hi @Sinmok, thanks for posting! Have you tried the histogram in the feed? It’s just below the pay period card. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sinmok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@Sinmok](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Sinmok)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/3 "2019-10-17T12:40:06Z")
Hi @edoardomoreni, this is close to what I’d like to see but it seems to only show for the last 4 months and is pretty basic. I’d like to be able to see this data over a variable time range. Perhaps also with the option of viewing this data for more than one category at a time and with combined categories too? For example: Show me how much I have spent on **bills** _and_ **groceries** in the last X months. Show me how much I have spent on **bills** _vs_ **groceries** in the last X months. Cheers ---
**Author:** ![Wmeads001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce73a5/32.png) [@Wmeads001](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Wmeads001)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/4 "2019-10-21T13:56:00Z")
This has been requested a number of times. At the moment because this is not available i have to maintain an excel sheet of catageory by month to get a handle on my spending over 12 months. Other periods are not useable as i have a number of annual payments. ---
**Author:** ![Sinmok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@Sinmok](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Sinmok)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/5 "2019-10-21T14:03:15Z")
@edoardomoreni Any chance we could get this in? I’d be happy to pay for this feature as part of Emma PRO. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/6 "2019-10-22T18:20:32Z")
I think we are going to kill the histogram and move it in the second level of analytics; so you can swipe back in time and see the value for each month. In addition to that, whenever you click on a bar, you should be able to see the transactions for that given month right away. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 6:21pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/7 "2019-10-22T18:21:24Z")
> [@Sinmok](#): > > @edoardomoreni Any chance we could get this in? I’d be happy to pay for this feature as part of Emma PRO. For Pro, we were thinking of adding rolling budgets. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Stacey1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stacey1](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Stacey1)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/8 "2020-02-13T17:19:22Z")
Hiya. Just picking up on this thread as have been looking for an answer for what I’m trying to do. Basically I want to look at spending by category and/or custom category for a preset period (last mth, 3mth etc) or custom date range and I can’t find this in the app. Very frustrating! It’s similar to the histogram feature but I can only see the option to view that by # or merchant. Is there anyway to toggle this by categories? Without this, I can understand why people are having to export to excel and manipulate. I note your comment about moving histogram to analytics and being able to swipe back month by month but would this include by category or still just # and merchant and ability to analyse with broader presets or custom dates? Any advice gratefully received! Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 10:29am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/9 "2020-02-18T10:29:29Z")
> [@Stacey1](#): > > Basically I want to look at spending by category and/or custom category for a preset period (last mth, 3mth etc) or custom date range and I can’t find this in the app. Histogram in the feed does this, we don’t have custom periods, but 3/4 of the functionality is there. 🙂 You can do something similar with What Did I Spend as well or by clicking on the category in Analytics. ---
**Author:** ![Stacey1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stacey1](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Stacey1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/10 "2020-02-18T19:29:41Z")
Thanks for the reply. Using the histogram for my purposes is somewhat helpful but ability for custom dates would round out the functionality if at all possible please?! 😊 also it would be awesome if there was the ability to click on a specific bar on the histogram for a month and this could bring up the transactions that make up that data set… just a thought! I can’t work out how to view categories within What did I spend… I can only toggle between merchants and tags. Am I missing something? Finally the analytics perspective is really helpful but again, option to view by custom date ranges would really take this to the next level as by month limits the ability to analyse from a broader angle unless data is exported and manipulated… (ie. how much have I spent on coffee this year…- but this answer I already know… too much!) I guess this is a similar request to having custom date ranges in the histogram view so whichever is easier!! Thanks for being open to the feedback and requests! ---
**Author:** ![M1keSkydive](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/m1keskydive/32/797_2.png) [@M1keSkydive](https://community.emma-app.com/u/M1keSkydive)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 10:24am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/11 "2020-02-19T10:24:21Z")
A fairly simple improvement to the existing category histogram would be to see a) a line for each category over the 6mo period and b) y axis labels ---
**Author:** ![M1keSkydive](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/m1keskydive/32/797_2.png) [@M1keSkydive](https://community.emma-app.com/u/M1keSkydive)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 10:39am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/12 "2020-02-19T10:39:58Z")
Oh, and for graphs that are monthly, a bar chart would work better than a line. I’m basically thinking AWS Cost Explorer for my own finances at this point… ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/13 "2020-02-19T18:11:13Z")
> [@M1keSkydive](#): > > Oh, and for graphs that are monthly, a bar chart would work better than a line We are doing this in the second level of Analytics. ---
**Author:** ![Gaoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@Gaoler](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Gaoler)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 11:19am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/14 "2020-08-13T11:19:09Z")
Anyone know the date range for the Analytics bar chart? It’s also extremely confusing for categories that are positive in some months and negative in others! ![IMG_20200813_121402](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/emma_app/original/2X/2/2f8ef2324e2ba921ac082150a4cafbe75e4412db.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![rebekah](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/rebekah/32/1091_2.png) [@rebekah](https://community.emma-app.com/u/rebekah)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 11:53am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/15 "2020-08-13T11:53:07Z")
> [@Gaoler](#): > > the date range for the Analytics bar chart? Hey! What do you mean by this? How far back the data goes? 😊 ---
**Author:** ![Gaoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@Gaoler](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Gaoler)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/16 "2020-08-13T12:18:32Z")
> [@rebekah](#): > > How far back the data goes? Is it the average for six months, a year, all time? ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/17 "2020-08-13T12:27:13Z")
> [@Gaoler](#): > > Is it the average for six months, a year, all time? You can see the range - it’s all the months you see. ---
**Author:** ![Gaoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@Gaoler](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Gaoler)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/18 "2020-08-13T14:14:27Z")
> [@edoardomoreni](#): > > You can see the range - it’s all the months you see. Ah, OK. Looks like a full six months plus the current month. ---
**Author:** ![Gaoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@Gaoler](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Gaoler)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/19 "2021-09-27T12:32:42Z")
> [@Gaoler](#): > > It’s also extremely confusing for categories that are positive in some months and negative in others Just to come back to this. The bar charts for lots of my categories are meaningless. Emma seems just to display no bars at all for any category that is sometimes positive and sometimes negative. It makes it very hard to compare even month to month at a glance, let alone any other time period… ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 12:51pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193/20 "2021-09-27T12:51:44Z")
> [@Gaoler](#): > > Emma seems just to display no bars at all for any category that is sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Yes, we don’t show it for positive categories, but apart from Income, which category do you have positive? [Next page](https://community.emma-app.com/t/analytics-by-category-over-time-periods/1193.md?page=2)