Auto-categorization rules

Recurring spend that goes through the bank —subscriptions, fees, utilities, membership dues— arrives every month with the same description but no invoice to identify it. Auto-categorization rules classify those movements on their own: you define a condition on the movement's text and, when it matches, Aikount assigns the category / account you set. It's the same rules approach Firefly popularized.

How they work#

A rule has two parts:

• Condition on the bank movement's description: contains some text, with the option of several alternatives (contains X or Y).
• Action: the expense category (and therefore the group-6 account) the movement should post to.

Rules are managed per category: you create the rule inside the target category, so it reads as "this category is filled by the movements that meet these conditions".

A rule can span several bank accounts at once. If the same charge can appear in different banks or treasuries, you don't need to duplicate the rule: a single one covers them all.

Example#

A subscription whose charge always includes the same text on the statement:

• Condition: the description contains NETFLIX or NFLX.
• Target category: Software and subscriptions (for example, account 629).
• Scope: all your treasuries, or only the account it's billed to.

From then on, every monthly charge whose text contains NETFLIX or NFLX is categorized automatically, without you touching it. Another common case is a payment provider's fees: a rule with COMMISSION or FEE routes them to their bank-services account.

When to use them (and when not)#

• Use them for repetitive spend recognizable by its description: subscriptions, dues, fees, utilities.
• You don't need them for expenses with an invoice: the agent already categorizes those when it reads the PDF in Purchases. Rules are for the movements that do not come from an invoice of yours.

Relation to movements#

Rules act on bank movements: see Bank movements to understand where those charges come from and how they're listed per treasury. When a movement does correspond to a specific invoice or expense, what you want isn't a category rule but to link it to its document: that's reconciliation.

Tip: start from a short list of well-defined categories (Expense categories) and add rules only for the spend that repeats month to month. Simple rules and few categories hit the mark more often than many overlapping rules.