Payee arrives oversimplified which breaks rename rules - wal-mart

bdub52

In multiple accounts I have transactions that "appear on statement as" (with my desired categories)
walmartcom (should be shopping)
wal-mart super (should be shopping)
wal-mart #2979 (should be groceries)

All are being renamed by simplifi Wal-mart with a category of shopping despite my not having. This doesn't allow me to create rename rules.  Could we get it to quit naming things wal-mart and let me sort it out

bdub52

overview showing a lump of Wal-mart transactions

bdub52

This one should be walmart.com and categorized as shopping

bdub52

This one should be walmart supercenter and categorized as shopping

bdub52

This one should be walmart grocery and categorized as grocery

Coach Natalie

Hello @bdub52,

Thank you for taking the time to report this to the Community, although I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing this behavior in Simplifi.

To clarify, do you currently have any Payee and/or Category Rules setup for Walmart? If you're unsure, I'd definitely suggest checking this under Settings>Rules.

If you don't have any Rules set up for Walmart, you may consider creating one to have the Payee renamed from "Wal-mart" as you mentioned above. I also shop at Walmart and I believe that my transactions were originally coming in as "Wal-mart" as well. These are the Payee Rules that I've created to prevent this from occurring:

I also sometimes shop at Walmart.com or use Walmart Grocery, but I personally don't have any Rules set up for these particular instances; I just edit those specific transactions as they download to correct the Payee name. 

If you'd like to get rid of the "Shopping" Category, you can also create a Category Rule for Walmart using the Category of your preference (mine is "Groceries" since this is the bulk of my Walmart shopping). Our Support Article here has more details on using Transaction Rules in Simplifi.

Please let us know how it goes!

-Coach Natalie

bdub52

I have no rules for walmart. They are being renamed during the import process. When I try and create a rule I can't because the payee is already Wal-Mart.  When I add any keywords that are in the "appears on your statement" section, I get "this rule will not apply to the original payee" since the rename rules don't go by the statement description. Only the name that simplifi has given it.  Simplifi is renaming anything with wal and mart to Wal-Mart before the import.

Coach Natalie

Hello @bdub52,

Thanks for confirming!

To clarify, when it comes to Payee Rules, Simplifi does rename Payees using the "Appears on your statement as..." info. With that being said, it looks like you're attempting to create the Payee Rule from the transaction directly -- have you tried creating the same Rule under Settings>Rules, by chance? If not, please give this a try and let us know how it goes.

We also have a Support Article on creating and using Transaction Rules in Simplifi that may contain some additional helpful info for you: http://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4792733-how-to-use-transaction-rules

-Coach Natalie

bdub52

Ignore the "walgreens", I was a bit early on the screencap.

I now have a rule set up but note it says it doesn't match any transactions.  Will this only help new incoming transactions and not the old "appears on statement" stuff that have already been imported?  

Coach Natalie

Hello @bdub52,

Awesome! I'm glad that you were able to get the Rules created from Settings>Rules.

That is correct -- if you're unable to apply the Rule to past transactions, then it would just apply to your transactions moving forward. However, if you do have past transactions that the Rule creation process should be identifying, would you mind providing screenshots of a few specific examples?

Also, I'd still like to report the issues that you were seeing when attempting to create the Rules from the transactions directly, as these types of issues have been reported a few times here in the Community but no one followed up with solid enough data for me to actually get it reported to our Product Team. I think it would be nice to get this behavior in front of them and see what they say.

With that being said, would you mind also providing a corrected screenshot of the "walmartcom" example above, but with the Payee name corrected from "Walgreens", please? This will give us a true comparison of a specific Rule being created from the Settings>Rules page versus from the transaction directly.

Thanks in advance!

-Coach Natalie