Advanced Transaction Rules: Share your feedback here!

xt741258 · November 5

It appears 'Contains' means the statement name 'contains' exactly this keyword, rather than the statement name when treated as a string 'contains' this text. The result being, I cannot match a statement which contains:

"1234-BUSINESS-099999"

With the keyword:

BUSINESS

I have to use:

1234-BUSINESS-099999

Simplifi treats "1234-BUSINESS-099999" as a single word and does not search within words. This wouldn't be a big deal except the numbers around the word BUSINESS are account data/mystery data that is assigned by the financial infrastructure.

Often in the context of filtering/matching, 'Contains' indicates a substring search is being performed but Simplifi matches against the text as space separated tokens, looking for exact matches, rather than searching within the whole statement name for any occurrence of the keyword.

Coach Natalie · November 5

@xt741258, I have merged your other thread here to leave your feedback/concerns regarding Transaction Rules in one place. I see that Quicken Kirby is working with you here, so you should be hearing back from her!

xt741258 · November 5

Great, thanks. @Quicken Kirby, my last message is a response to your suggestion to use "Contains". The rule will not match a substring, and the removal of hyphens breaks the match, as a result.

DryHeat · November 5

@Quicken Kirby

We can now do more with the Advanced Rules than we used to. That's good.

BUT… Do the changes we make to a transaction using Rules affect the matching of a downloaded transaction with a Recurring Series?

For example, should the Name used for a Recurring Series be fashioned to resemble (1) the "Original statement name," (2) the "Quicken name," or (3) the changed Payee imposed by the Rule?

Quicken Kirby · November 5

@DryHeat

This is such a great question! You are right that it matters.

Having Payee after Rule and Series name be the same helps our system.

While you have options in Series setup (around amounts and dates and connected billers and such) that also influence how things are matched, aligning Payee after Rule applied and Series name is a strong signal to the matching engine.

DryHeat · November 5

Thanks, @Quicken Kirby … That will help fix a couple of my problem recurring series.

SRC54 · November 6

@Quicken Kirby I have names for some of my recurring items that aren't the payee I will end up using, but this is to make it easier for me to distinguish.

Examples: Steve's Prescriptions (quarterly) is a different month from Linda's Prescriptions (quarterly). Both will end up CVS and come in as CVS.

Same is true of Linda's Social Security versus Steve's Social Security. After they are deposited , it is SSA for the payee.

I think they usually match and keep the payee but I don't remember. Once they are paid, I don't care to distinguish because we pay things and receive money as a household and not individually. It is just to help me keep up when I need to go get the medicine and expect the payments.

DryHeat · November 6

@SRC54

You could try a renaming rule for CVS that makes the Payee "Prescriptions" and one for SS that makes it "Social Security." Using that (plus the different quarter and different amounts) might help correct matching.

SRC54 · November 6

@DryHeat I don't have any trouble matching since the amounts are exact. I just wondered if others might. I just rename them as necessary. I do things so automatically after 40 years that I often don't remember an hour later what I did.

But my wife went to Walmart yesterday, and after I thought I had it fixed, it came in Wal-Mart anyhow. Fiddled with the rules again. Every single terminal at Walmart uses different language! No biggie. I fixed it manually in 2 seconds.

I only use rules so I can understand how they work to help others with them. To me they are almost more problem than they are worth. I don't use them in Quicken Classic at all since QC doesn't download any pending transactions so I enter them all manually anyhow.

Edit: I go to Walmart, Aldi, Publix and Shell. I never go anywhere else to buy anything. They are within a mile of my house. Publix and Aldi always are right even though I have no rule for either of them. I have a rule for Shell, and it is always right. Walmart is almost always wrong. Go figure.

Quicken Kirby · November 6

Thanks for the interesting conversation.
When I started Simplifi, I named all my bills in a way that helped me keep track of the bill (like "Don't forget to pay your credit card by the 2nd"), not for the purposes of matching to transactions, so I definitely get this.
If you have other needs, matching to a reminder to a transaction does also have date, amount, and the matching approach you've selected (exact amount, auto-match, etc).
It's just if you can, it will improve things to have a the Rule rename the Payee to be an exact match with the Reminder/Series name.
I am considering whether we need both a Payee and a Series name for this purpose (wouldn't be required but could be added for cases like yours, @SRC54).

SRC54 · November 6

@Quicken Kirby Thanks. I need to do a better job of keeping an eye out for what happens with my recurring transactions that have a different name from the payee. I think it gives it the Recurring name, which I then change to the payee. It is quick and easy.

For my Steve's Social Security, I usually enter it manually a day or so before because I have a split with my Medicare premium, so I link it after I created the payee of SSA, so it sticks.

DryHeat · November 6

@Quicken Kirby

I am considering whether we need both a Payee and a Series name

If so, filling in the Series name should automatically fill in the Payee, unless overridden. (or vice-versa)

(This is similar to what happens for an Expense series in Planned Spend.)

SRC54 · November 6

@Quicken Kirby You might find it interesting to know how I handle my Social Security payments in the Spending Plan.

I have two recurring transactions: One is a subscription for $185 for Medicare; the other is an income for the SS amount. Let's say it's $2400.

When I get the payment for $2215, it may or may not link to the $2400 income. I don't want it to do so anyhow because if it does, it corrects the $2400 ok, but the expense goes into Other Spending.

So what I do is link it to the expense series. I then dismiss the now redundant income recurring. By doing this, I get both to show up in the Spending Plan. Income automatically shows up as SSA $2400 Category: Steve's SS and the Medicare will show up in Subscriptions as SSA $185 Category: Medicare.

Here's how it shows up:

I cut off the income amount and I include my wife's SSA which comes in a week before mine.

Screenshot 2025-11-06 at 10.46.53 AM.png

Screenshot 2025-11-06 at 10.47.18 AM.png

If and when we ever get splits in recurring I would want it to automatically do this putting expenses in subscriptions and income in income. 😀

I do the same thing with my wife's pension from which federal tax and dental insurance are subtracted.

I have to jump through similar hoops for my gross and qualified IRA distributions.

Quicken Kirby · November 7

@SRC54 thanks for all this detail!

RobWilk · November 7

@SRC54 I also collected on Gregori v. Tubi

How do you handle Medicare again, BTW, it wasn't clear to me and I may be interested in doing something similar - My SS income is "in the same area" (slightly higher) as the SS income you made up from social security (it's about $200 higher because I get reimbursed for medicare), but the very fact that I get reimbursed for Medicare may mean I should track it separately. Are you saying there is a 'split' for medicare or a separate (manual/artificial?) transaction deducting it?

It looks like you are using splits, so a (possibly edited for privacy, but preserving the positive/negative signs, screenshot would be helpful.

== please feel free to split this to a different topic as it is slightly off-topic, but i didn't know how to reference the post without losing the link to it.

SRC54 · November 7

@RobWilk Good for you on Tubi. I fill out those things every time I get one and then like serendipity, out of the blue a year or two later, I get a little check or Zelle payment. LOL.

Yes, the Medicare premium ($185 minimum) is deducted from my SS check and from my wife's as well. So I have a reminder for them in the Bills Section of the Spending Plan. I have a category under Healthcare for Medicare Premiums.

When I get my deposit, I split it between SS income and the Medicare Expense and then link the transaction to the Medicare reminder. This makes it show up as $2400 SS Income and $185 Subscription in the Spending Plan.

We are a bit off topic here but we were talking about the transaction rules as well as recurring names and which one gets used. I use Steve's SS in the Reminder to differentiate from Linda's SS but after I receive the income, I rename both payees to SSA. I have separate income categories for our SS income because it's required for the Taxes Report (SS Income, self and SS income, spouse). It helps me to be prepared for my taxes.

ZHailWayne · November 21

I love the feature overall! Already started saving me time!
However, the orders of which the rules are applied is making rules not work. For example, I want all transactions on Account A (regardless of payee) to have a Categroy B. However, existing rules that are payee-specific (if Payee C, use Category D) is overriding the Account level rules.

DryHeat · November 21

@ZHailWayne

Supposedly, the first rule in the list that applies is the only one that gets executed. You will have to edit the rule you want to control in order to move it to the top of the list. Which is pretty clumsy.

You might want to vote for this suggestion:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/12770/allow-users-to-specify-the-order-in-which-transaction-rules-are-applied-edited

DannyB · November 25

Having skimmed through this thread so far, I decided to update one of my recurring series. This is a transfer and ended up with a rather unhelpful Payee name form when I first created the series. Using the new Advanced Transactions Rules, I created a rule to change the name to something more useful and helpful. When the rule was set up QS found previous transactions with the original payee name and I OK'd applying the rule to those transactions. Next, I opened the edit series for this recurring transaction and renamed the series to match the new payee's name of the new Rule.

Now I wait and see what happens next time this transaction comes around… 🤞

Advanced Transaction Rules: Share your feedback here!

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