How can I make Quicken automatically put transactions in the right category?

euphonia · February 3

Your product gets some basic automatic categorization wrong. Do you have any of such capabilities or I have to create rules? But I cannot create rules for all transactions. Basic things that you got wrong

Wealthfront Edi Pymnts On 02/03 ⇒ "Car Insurance"???

Costco Gas ⇒ "Groceries"???

S325ar1 Rent ⇒ "Uncategorized"???

Coach Jon · February 3

Hello @euphonia,

Thanks for reaching out! I would definitely suggest Transaction Rules in this case. Transaction Rules can be used to have Quicken Simplifi automatically recognize your incoming transactions based on specific or broad "if" conditions, such as the payee or amount, and then apply "then" conditions, such as rename payee, update category, and tag. Creating Transaction Rules will allow you to make sure your transactions always come in the way you want them to.

Our support article goes into steps on how to do this here: https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/4792733-how-to-use-transaction-rules-in-the-web-app#h_22b9a65773

euphonia · February 6

I know how to create rules. But I cannot be exhaustive. I'm asking for basic improvement and bug fix. How can you not categorize "S325ar1 Rent " properly, for example.

Coach Jon · February 6

Hello @euphonia,

Thanks for the reply. While Quicken Simplifi does its best to categorize your transactions properly, it may not always do so. A lot of the time, these transactions come in this way from the bank itself as well, when being downloaded. This is why I suggested using Transaction Rules in this case. So that you know the transactions associated with those created rules will come in as you want them to.

SRC54 · February 7

I can understand your frustration, and it is my perception (which could be wrong) that Simplifi has gotten a little worse at learning. I think some of this, if true, could be due to extra emphasis lately on adding features.

In my case, not making rules has been a little bit of stubbornness as I wanted to see if Simplifi would learn. And miscategorizations are so easy to fix. For some reason when I get money from the ATM, Simplifi categorizes it as Professional:Meals because once many years ago, that was used one time. 90% of the time it is a cash transfer to my cash account., but it never learned that.

But the worst is that when ATM transaction downloads as pending and I fix it, the next day when it clears it downloads as Meals again and the one I fixed is still pending. I find that much more consternating than fixing it. Of course, I just merge the two. Anyhow I finally broke down and made a rule, so I'll see next time if that works. But I bet it still duplicates the next day when it clears.

And of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. When I get cash, it is a transfer. When my wife gets cash, it is spending money I never see. (Note: I put so many demands on her regarding categorization, account she uses, dates, etc. that I don't have the heart or nerve to ask her how she spends this 😀). How to make a rule for that?

I guess I could say that when it's $200, it is Spending Money and all other amounts are transfers, but of course, she might get more or less once in a while. Lately, I just get extra cash and hand her some and I make a manual entry in my Cash account for Spending Money for her. (She laughs and says she feels like Lucy getting her allowance from Ricky, but she hates to go to the ATM so I guess it's ok. LOL)

Just another user's experience. And I have others too, of course. Unless it is a bill, most of my expenses are splits and so it doesn't really matter how Simplifi categorizes that, because I've got to split it anyhow; changing that one category is no big deal.

DryHeat · February 7

@euphonia

I used to believe that Simplifi was designed to learn from the corrections I make to my transactions when they are improperly categorized on download. (I'm pretty sure I saw some comments to that effect in the past.)

But I no longer think that is the case. The help documents say that automatic categorization is based on "a combination of crowdsourcing, nearby payees, and simple logic." I'm not sure exactly what those mean.

I guess "crowdsourcing" could be an overall look at how Simplifi subscribers in general treat such transactions. "Nearby payees" is a mystery, at least to me. Maybe one of the coaches can explain that for us.

But the point is it doesn't sound like Simplifi focuses on my corrections when it categorizes my transactions. I'd like to be wrong about that.

How can I make Quicken automatically put transactions in the right category?

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