Accounting
Rules
Bank rules save time by automatically suggesting a category for bank transactions as they come in — for example, routing anything from a particular payee to a specific expense account.
How rules work
Each rule has one or more conditions and an action.
A condition tests a field on the transaction — Description, Payee, Amount, Transaction Type or Check Number — with an operator such as Contains, Equals, Starts with, Greater than, Less than or Between. You choose whether the rule fires when all conditions match or when any of them match.
The action is either:
- Assign — categorize the transaction to a chart-of-accounts account, optionally set the payee, assign a property, or split it across several accounts; or
- Exclude — mark the line as a transfer so it stays out of your books.
When Auto-add is turned on, a matching transaction is categorized and posted automatically; otherwise the rule just pre-fills the suggestion and the line still waits in For review for you to confirm.
Create a rule
- Go to Accounting → Bank Rules.
- Click New and set the matching condition(s) and whether to match all or any of them.
- Choose the action — the account/category to assign (or exclude).
- Save. New matching transactions pick up the rule.
Tip
You can also create a rule straight from a bank transaction, which pre-fills the conditions from that line.
Apply and review
- Rules run automatically as bank transactions are imported or synced.
- To apply a rule to lines already waiting in For review, open the rule and use Apply to existing.
- Review categorized items periodically to make sure rules are still accurate as your payees change.