#TipTuesday: Using Transaction Rules

Coach Nicole

Organizing your money is essential when budgeting, as it gives insight into where you’re money goes! We also get that categorizing each transaction can become cumbersome; this is where Transaction Rules come into play!

Using Transaction Rules, you can tell us how you want certain payees listed and how you want Simplifi to categorize a transaction based on your unique needs. The best part...Simplifi will apply your changes however you tell it to, updating all of your applicable transactions automatically. Let Simplifi do the work for you! 🤗

You can manage all of your rules directly under Settings > Payees & Rules. You can even create a rule when updating an existing transaction! Simply check the box that says “Apply to similar transactions” when updating the category. We’ll change all previous transactions with the existing category you changed and remember it in the future. Check out our help article here for more info!

Already using Transaction Rules? Even better! Share some of your best practices for using Transaction Rules. 

Coach Natalie

I personally love the ability to create Transaction Rules! Not only do the Payees that get downloaded with weird or long names get renamed to something more manageable, but my Categories also get automatically assigned, which takes a lot of the work out of managing my transactions.

Although they don't cover everything, I've gone through and created Rules for my most common items, which gets the majority of my transactions looking exactly how I want them, without me having to do a thing!

Flopbot

@Coach Nicole

Thanks for this #TipTuesday and for adding Rules to Simplifi!  From what I've gathered, this is a fairly new feature, but it pre-dates me.

My one suggestion would be to add a "Rename Payee" option to this list.  As of yet, I haven't found a way to rename a payee if I mistype something when creating the original payee.  In a couple instances, I've had to go back and create a second rule and then delete the first.

Coach Natalie

Hello @Flopbot,

Thanks for the feedback!!

To clarify, you can edit a Payee Rule, but you need to expand the Rule first by clicking on the little arrow to the left of the Payee, and then clicking on the second set of three dots to the right of the Rule(s) for that Payee:


Please let me know if you have any questions!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hey everyone!

We just wanted to give this #TipTuesday a bump so any new Community Members can see it! There have also been some pretty major design changes made to the Settings>Rules section since we posted this -- you can now search the Rules page, you can easily create or remove a Category Rule by using the Category drop-down menu, you can tell at a glance how many Payee Rules you have set up for a specific Payee, and the three-dot menu design has changed.

We even have a brand new YouTube video that goes over the new and improved design!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDPp0X2eOAo&t=3s

We'd love to hear your feedback on the design changes, and we'd also love to hear any tips and tricks that you may have when it comes to using Transaction Rules in Simplifi!

Thank you!

DannyB

@Coach Natalie @Coach Nicole I have a question about sequence if it even applies.

• I have a Rule to rename a monthly transfer from a checking account to a savings account.
• I also have that transfer set up as a recurring transfer.
• The name of the transfer in Recurring is what is downloaded when the transfer is recorded by my bank.
• Will that transfer be renamed before or after it is filtered by the renaming rule? And if renamed will it be recognized and matched to the recurring transfer?
• Or should I give the recurring transfer the same name that is given in the renaming rule?
• Or does it even matter?

Coach Natalie

That's a great question @DannyB!

The renaming of a transaction occurs at the time of download, however, as soon as the transaction is linked to the Recurring Reminder, it will take the Payee and Category that was assigned during the Recurring Series setup. With that said, I personally don't think that it would matter since the transaction will end up with the details of the Recurring Series regardless. 

I hope this helps, but please be sure to let us know if you have any further questions! 

-Coach Natalie

DannyB

Thanks @Coach Natalie I'll make sure that the name occurs with both the renaming rule and the recurring series.