Skip to content
Tovari Docs

Review Center

Maintained by Jason Ewing, founder of Tovari · Published · How we write these docs

What is the Review Center?

Section titled “What is the Review Center?”

The Review Center is where Tovari asks you about things it is fairly sure about but will not act on by itself: two transactions that look like the same money moving between your accounts, a charge that looks like it repeats every month, spending with no category, a transaction you typed that your bank then sent through as well.

Rather than guessing, Tovari puts each of these in a queue, so the decisions are in one place instead of scattered through your register.

It is also where your notifications live — the alerts Tovari sends you about bills coming due, your budget and spending, Safe to Spend and your bank connections — so everything that needs you is in one place.

Nothing here changes your money. Confirming a suggestion changes how Tovari files something you already have.

The four queues

Section titled “The four queues”
Queue What is in it
Detected Transfers Money that moved between two of your own accounts. Confirming the pair stops it counting as spending.
Recurring Bills Charges that look like they repeat. Adding one puts it on your schedule.
Uncategorized Transactions with no category yet, including a split transaction that has an Uncategorized line.
Possible Duplicates Two records of what looks like one charge — either something you typed and your bank then sent through as well, or two copies your bank sent of the same purchase.

Why the first two are worth doing

Section titled “Why the first two are worth doing”

Two of the queues tell you what confirming them will change, because both affect numbers you rely on elsewhere:

  • Uncategorized spending stays out of your category budgets until it is filed. Until you file it, your budget is reporting less spending than actually happened, and the queue shows you the running total that is sitting unfiled.
  • Adding a bill puts it on your schedule and into Safe to Spend’s bills due. The queue shows the monthly effect of adding everything in it, so you can see what it would do before you commit.

Two kinds of duplicate

Section titled “Two kinds of duplicate”

A duplicate can come from either side. Sometimes you typed a purchase and your bank sent the same one through afterwards. Sometimes your bank simply sent the same purchase twice — that one used to sit in your register unnoticed, and Tovari now finds it.

Because a merchant you visit twice in a day is perfectly normal, Tovari only raises a bank-sent repeat when the same charge shows up doubled on other days too. If it is just a busy day at the same coffee shop, nothing is raised.

When you keep one copy and remove the other, the card tells you first if your balance will move, and asks you to tick a box confirming the amount before it does anything. Nothing is removed until you say so, and if you would rather leave both, Not a duplicate always clears the card.

Nothing you dismiss comes back

Section titled “Nothing you dismiss comes back”

Rejecting a suggestion is remembered. If you say something is not a transfer, not a bill, or not a duplicate, Tovari will not suggest it again.

Your notifications

Section titled “Your notifications”

Alongside the queues, the Review Center holds your notifications. Each one says what happened and, where there is somewhere to go — a bill, your budget, one of the queues — offers a button that takes you there.

Opening a notification marks it read, and Mark all as read clears them all at once.

If one of your bank connections has stopped syncing, the list says so at the top and holds back the bill and budget alerts that could be wrong until it is fixed, rather than telling you something that has not synced.

Which notifications you get, and whether they also reach you by email, is set in Settings.

The count on the bell

Section titled “The count on the bell”

The count on the Review Center — on its bell, and next to its name where there is one — is the number of items waiting in the queues. When nothing is waiting but you have notifications you have not read, it shows how many of those there are instead, and the bell takes you straight to them. When both are clear there is no count at all, and a count that is still loading is never shown as a zero.

Finding it

Section titled “Finding it”

Review Center is in the left-hand navigation, carrying a count when there is anything waiting. The bell at the top of the dashboard is the other way in; it only appears when there is a count to show. When nothing is waiting in the queues, the Review Center tells you so: You’re all caught up — nothing needs review.

Working a queue

Section titled “Working a queue”

The four queues sit in a rail down the side; choosing one shows its items. Each queue has a primary action and a “not this” action — Approve transfer and Not a transfer on a detected pair, and the equivalent pair on each of the others.

Where a queue supports it you can work in bulk rather than one at a time: Approve all on detected transfers, and multi-select with Clear selection on uncategorized spending. Tovari tells you how many of the batch succeeded rather than reporting a silent all-or-nothing.

If a write fails — filing a category, adding a bill to your schedule, or an undo — every queue shows the reason in a banner instead of doing nothing. Your selection and progress stay in place so you can just try again.

Changing your mind

Section titled “Changing your mind”

Adding a recurring bill can be undone from the queue after the fact — the row shows it was Added to schedule and offers to reverse it. A bulk categorization offers Undo — restore categories, which puts the previous categories back rather than clearing them.

Notifications

Section titled “Notifications”

Below the queues in the rail, under Updates, is Notifications, with the number you have not read. Choosing it shows your notifications in place of a queue. A notification that points at one of the queues switches straight to that queue.

On a phone browser

Section titled “On a phone browser”

In a phone browser the Review Center is called Alerts, as in the mobile app. Open it from the bell at the top of the main screens or from Alerts in the menu at the top left. It opens as an inbox: one card per queue with its count, then a Notifications card with the number you have not read.

All four queues are worked right there, one item at a time, with the same verbs as the mobile app. Approve the item, turn it down, or choose Skip for now to leave it for later.

  • New recurring bills shows the charges Tovari matched above the bill’s details — payee, amount, category, how often it repeats, the account and the next due date — so you can correct any of them before you choose Add to schedule.
  • Possible duplicates shows both records. Merge into one keeps the bank’s copy; when both copies came from your bank, Keep one, remove the other removes the extra one. If removing it would change the account’s balance, tick the box saying you understand first. Not a duplicate asks you to confirm, because Tovari will not suggest that pair again.

After you approve a transfer, file a transaction, add a bill or mark something Not a bill, a notice at the bottom of the screen offers Undo. Merging, removing a copy and Not a duplicate cannot be undone, so their notice only confirms what happened.
Section titled “Related pages”