Why RCT Splits Every Receipt Into Line Items, Not One Number
RCT reads every line on a scanned receipt and assigns each item to one of 49 categories on its own. A single supermarket trip can end up split across groceries, snacks, alcohol, and cleaning supplies instead of sitting in your budget as one combined “shopping” line.
Most budgeting apps stop at the receipt total. You buy groceries, connect your bank, and the transaction shows up as “Supermarket, €47.30.” That number tells you where you spent money, not what you actually bought it on.
RCT works at the item level instead. Point your camera at a receipt and it reads every row: the eggs, the beer, the dish soap, the chocolate bar you grabbed at checkout. Each one gets its own category, so that same €47.30 trip might come back as €22 groceries, €8 alcohol, €6 snacks, and €5 cleaning supplies. You see the shape of the spending, not just the size of it.
Discounts and deposits stay with their item
Supermarket receipts are messy. A single item can have a loyalty discount on one line and a bottle deposit on another, both printed separately from the item they belong to. RCT groups those back with the item they’re attached to, so a discounted six-pack shows up as one adjusted price instead of three disconnected lines that don’t add up to anything meaningful on their own.
The 49 categories roll up into 9 groups
Forty-nine categories is the right resolution for sorting a receipt and far too much detail for a chart. So each category belongs to a broader group: groceries, going out, home, transport, shopping, fun, personal care, health, and money & obligations. Charts start at the group level and let you drill into the categories underneath.
The grouping isn’t fixed. You can move any category into a different group, coffee out of groceries and into going out if that’s how you think about it, and build up to two groups of your own with their own name, icon, and color. Moving a category regroups everything you’ve already scanned, not just what comes next.
It learns how you categorize things
Category names on receipts are inconsistent between stores, and sometimes an item just gets filed wrong on the first pass. When you move an item to a different category, RCT remembers. The next item with a similar name gets suggested under the category you just picked, so correcting one mislabeled item saves you from correcting the next five.
Why this matters for a budget
Per-category limits are only useful if the categories are accurate. If “groceries” secretly includes wine, cigarettes, and a new phone case, a grocery limit doesn’t tell you anything real. Sorting at the item level is what makes a category limit, or a monthly report, mean what it says.