Auto-Categorization Rules
Rules let you automatically assign categories and vendors to transactions based on their description. After every Square, Stripe, or Plaid sync, rules run automatically on all uncategorized transactions.
How Rules Work
Each rule matches against a transaction's description and assigns a category, a vendor, or both. Rules run in priority order (highest number first); the first matching rule wins and stops further evaluation for that transaction.
A transaction is considered "uncategorized" if it has no category assigned (category_id is null). Rules will also fill in a missing vendor even if a category is already set, and vice versa.
Creating a Rule
- Go to Rules in the left sidebar
- Click + Add Rule
- Fill in the fields:
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | No | A label for the rule (for your reference only) |
| Match type | Yes | How to compare the description — see below |
| Match value | Yes | The text to match against (case-insensitive) |
| Category | No | Category to assign if matched |
| Vendor | No | Vendor to assign if matched |
| Priority | No | Higher number = runs first. Default: 0 |
At least one of Category or Vendor must be set for the rule to do anything useful.
Match Types
| Match type | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Contains | Description includes the match value anywhere |
| Starts with | Description begins with the match value |
| Equals | Description exactly matches the match value (case-insensitive) |
Priority Ordering
Rules with a higher priority number run first. If two rules could both match a transaction, the one with the higher priority number wins. Assign higher numbers to more specific rules so they take precedence over broad catch-all rules.
Example:
- Priority 10: description contains "Adobe" → assign vendor "Adobe Inc" + category "Software"
- Priority 1: description contains "subscription" → assign category "Software"
A transaction from "Adobe Creative Cloud subscription" matches both, but priority 10 runs first.
Running Rules Manually
Click Apply Rules to re-run all active rules against every uncategorized transaction right now. This is useful after creating new rules or importing a batch of old transactions.
Disabling a Rule
Toggle the Active switch on a rule row. Inactive rules are skipped during both automatic and manual runs.
TIP
Start with broad, low-priority rules for common categories, then add specific high-priority rules for known vendors. This keeps your rule list small while covering the most common cases.