Column chart

Vertical categorical bars. It sits in the Comparison group of the widget library.

When to use it#

Use a column chart to compare amounts across periods or a handful of categories: spending per month, income per quarter, or net cash flow per week.

When to pick something else#

• Many categories with long names, like merchants? Use a Bar chart; horizontal labels fit better.
• Watching a trend over many dates? Use a Line chart.
• Splitting each period into parts? Use a Stacked bar.
• Comparing two measures side by side, like income and spending? Use a Grouped bar.

The data it needs#

Pick these in the Data tab of the inspector. BankSync suggests a column for each when your source has an obvious match.

Rows that share a category are combined before drawing: choose Sum, Average, Count, Min or Max on the value field. See Binding data.

Column chart options#

This chart has no options of its own; everything on its Style tab is the shared chart styling below.

Shared chart styling#

Every chart also has the shared styling options. These apply to this one:

• Legend: position, layout and which series show.
• Axes: titles, tick labels and number format.
• Grid, title, padding and background.
• Value labels on the marks.
• Categories and labels: top N with "Other", sort order, readable labels, the handwritten callout.
• Style: corner radius, line width, opacity and animation.
• Tooltip on hover.
• Click to filter: clicking a mark can filter the rest of the dashboard. See Filters and cross-filtering.
• Colours: follow the dashboard palette or pick one for this chart.

Messy data#

• Rows with the same period or category are summed by default; choose another aggregate (average, last) for balances.
• Dates are sorted in order and never folded. Plain categories that don't fit the width fold into one Other (N) column.
• Negative values drop below zero, which makes net cash flow easy to read.
• A missing value leaves an empty slot rather than a zero column.
• A standout high value may get a short callout when it clearly beats the rest.

On a phone#

At full phone width, a year of monthly columns still fits, but axis labels thin out to every second or third period. Long category names are shortened; if they matter, switch to a Bar chart for phones.

Related charts#

• Bar chart: Horizontal categorical bars
• Grouped bar: Side-by-side bars per series
• Stacked bar: Composition per category
• 100% stacked bar: Composition as percentage
• Lollipop: Bars with circle endpoints
• Dot plot: Discrete category dots
• Bullet chart: Single value with target bands