Payee rules

What this does

A payee rule says: when a transaction's payee or description contains this text, it's this vendor and it belongs in this expense account. Rules run when a row is created in the Transaction Inbox, so a row for a known payee arrives already categorized and only needs a click. A rule you've watched fire correctly can be trusted to approve without you.

Payee rules serve the inbox (alerts and receipts). Bank rules are the separate set that serves statement imports.

Before you start

accounting.manage. Know the text as the bank writes it: CIRCLEK #2709221, not "Circle K." Matching ignores case and punctuation, so Circle K does match CIRCLEK, but a pattern longer than what the bank sends never matches.

Steps

Banking → Payee Rules. The list shows each rule's Pattern, Vendor, Account, Auto-Approve setting, Times Used, and Last Used.

New Rule. Payee Pattern is the text to look for (WALMART, AUTOZONE, NAPA). Vendor (optional) links matched rows to the vendor record. Expense Account is where the purchase posts. Auto-approve with a number of uses means: once this rule has matched that many times, approve matching rows automatically. The default is off, and the threshold defaults to 5.

Test this pattern. Paste a real transaction description into the box and the page tells you whether the pattern matches it, before you save.

From the inbox. The faster way to make rules: when you pick an account in the Approve dialog, tick the remember option and the rule is created from the payee you just confirmed. When a rule without auto-approve has been used enough times, the queue shows a nudge offering to turn auto-approve on for it.

How matching works

The pattern is searched in the row's raw payee, cleaned payee, and description together. When several rules match, the longest pattern wins, so ATT*BILL PAYMENT beats ATT. A match sets the payee to the rule's pattern text, the vendor, and the account, and raises the row's confidence. Deposit-memo rules (created from the Identify deposit panel) are a separate kind and never categorize expenses.

What happens in the books

A rule never posts anything by itself. Auto-approve calls the same approval as a click, with the same gates: period lock, duplicate check, matched account required. A row an auto-approve rule couldn't post lands in Needs review with the reason, like any other.

Common problems

The rule doesn't fire. Test the pattern against the exact bank text. Check whether a longer, wrong rule is winning.

It categorized a row wrong. Fix the row with Edit and approve; then edit the rule's account or delete the rule. Rows already approved don't change; correct those from the register.

Auto-approve posted something I'd have rejected. Void it from the register, and turn auto-approve off on that rule until the pattern is tighter.