Rules: fill in or import transactions your way

What a rule does

A rule looks at each new transaction from your bank or a file. When a transaction matches the rule's conditions, the rule fills it in the way you chose: it can set the payee and the category, add tags and set the description. It can also import the transaction straight into your ledger, or make sure it always waits for you in review. Each rule reads as a plain sentence:

• When bank text contains "applecare": set category Streaming & Media
• When bank text contains "netflix": set category Subscriptions, import automatically
• When payee is Tesco and amount is over 100: add tag Big shop

You build and manage rules on the web. They run on our side, so they work whichever device you review on: the app shows the payee and category a rule set, and the rule's description and tags are applied when you process an ordinary money-in or money-out transaction there, though the app does not show them first.

The Rules page

Open Rules from the sidebar, just below Payees & Categories (it is marked New for now). Your rules are listed in the order they run, top to bottom, each with its number. New rule opens the editor, and the search box finds a rule by its name or its summary.

Each rule shows its name (or its summary, if you gave it no name) and badges for how it behaves: Imports automatically, Always review, Stops later rules and Off. A line underneath counts its work, such as Used 12 times · last on 3 Oct 2026, and adds how many it imported automatically. A rule counts as used when its work reaches your ledger; filling in a transaction that is still waiting in review does not count until you process it.

• The switch turns a rule off without deleting it, and back on.
• The grip on the left moves a rule up or down. The keyboard works too: focus the grip, press space to pick the rule up, the arrow keys to move it and space to drop it. While you are searching, the order cannot change: clear the search first.
• The menu holds Edit, Duplicate and Delete. Clicking a rule's name opens it too. A duplicate is named after the original with (copy) and goes to the end of the list.
• History lists each time the rule was applied to past transactions, with what it changed and an Undo button.

A rule whose condition names a payee or an account you have since deleted shows Not running and matches nothing. Open it, remove the entry marked (deleted) from the condition and save, and it runs again.

Building a rule

New rule opens the editor. A name is optional; without one the rule is shown by its summary. The line This rule: shows the rule as a sentence and updates as you build it.

Conditions

Choose Match all of these (every condition must hold) or Match any of these (one is enough). Each condition picks what to check, how to compare and a value. Add a condition adds another, up to 20, and ticking Not on a condition matches the opposite, so contains becomes does not contain. The list of fields says what each one checks, and the information button beside the chosen field explains it again: hover over it, or tap it on a touch screen.

• Bank text: contains, is, starts with, ends with, or contains one of (type several values, separated by commas). It looks at everything the bank sent at once: the description, the names of who paid and who was paid, and the merchant name we recognised. It is the simplest way to catch a transaction. Under More fields you can narrow it to just the Description (the bank's own wording, even if you changed it in Endute), Counterparty (the names of who paid and who was paid) or Merchant (the merchant name we recognised, for example Amazon from "AMZN MKTP UK").
• Amount: is, is under, is over, is between, or is about (within a margin you set, 10% to start with). Type a plain number: the box has no currency symbol.
• Money in or out: Money out or Money in.
• Account: is one of the accounts you pick.
• Payee: is one of the payees you pick. As the editor says, Checks the payee a transaction is already linked to. To catch new ones, use Bank text. So it acts only on transactions Endute has already linked to that payee. With Not ticked, it also matches transactions not yet linked to any payee.

What the rule does

Under Then, choose any of a Payee, a Category, tags under Add tags (type a new name to create one) and a Description. Each starts as, for example, Leave the payee as it is, and a box left that way changes nothing on the transaction.

The category list offers only categories without subcategories. When the rule matches all of its conditions and one of them is money out, only expense categories are offered; with money in, only income categories.

Handling

• Fill in for review, the default: the transaction waits in review, filled in, for you to check.
• Import automatically (skip review): the transaction goes straight into your ledger.
• Always send to review: never imported automatically, even when another rule says so.

Tick Stop later rules and, when this rule matches, the rules below it are not checked.

The order rules run in

Rules run top to bottom, and every rule that matches applies, not just the first one:

• When two rules set the payee, the category or the description, the lower one wins.
• Tags add up: the transaction gets the tags of every rule that matched.
• Always send to review beats Import automatically, wherever the two rules sit, unless a rule above it with Stop later rules has already ended the run.
• Stop later rules ends the run at that rule.

Your rules come first: what a rule sets wins over what Endute learned from your past choices and over our automatic merchant suggestions. A useful pattern is general rules higher up and specific ones below them, so the specific rule has the last word. Or put the specific rule first and tick Stop later rules.

When a transaction stays in review anyway

Import automatically only books what it can book safely. A matching transaction still waits in review, filled in, when:

• it looks like a transfer between your own accounts;
• it has no payee, because no rule sets one and Endute has none to suggest;
• it has no category that fits it (an expense category for money out, an income category for money in), whether from the rule, from Endute's suggestion or from the payee's default category;
• it matches a scheduled transaction or one you entered by hand (shown as Matched), so you can match it to that instead;
• its amount is zero;
• another matching rule says Always send to review.

Rules also fill in older history you import in one tap, after connecting a bank or with Import all for a file: the payee, category, description and tags only. That import brings the rows in anyway, so the handling choices make no difference there, and transfers are left as they are.

See what it matches before you save

Under the form, What this rule matches checks the rule against what you already have as you build it, for example Matches 3 waiting in review and 40 in your ledger. 12 in your ledger would change. Two lists, Waiting in review and In your ledger, would change, show the transactions, each ledger one with its before and after, such as Category: None → Food > Groceries. A transaction whose category the rule cannot use says so and keeps its category. Each list shows the first 200; the counts cover every match.

Apply a rule to past transactions

Saving a rule changes nothing you already have: it works on transactions as they arrive. To bring the past into line, tick Also apply to the N transactions this would change or fill in under the preview. It starts unticked. Once ticked, every match is included and each row in the preview gets a tick box: untick any you want to leave out. The button then reads Save and apply to N and shows its progress while it works.

In your ledger, applying changes the payee, category and description of the matching transactions and adds the rule's tags (it never removes tags). Waiting in review, it fills in the matching transactions, or imports them where your rules say so. Waiting transactions are checked against all your rules, so one that another rule imports automatically can be imported. A message then sums it up, such as 12 changed in your ledger, 3 imported and 5 filled in for review. If it stops before the end, the message says how far it got and offers Continue, which carries on from there and keeps the rows you left out.

What applying never changes

• transfers, loan repayments, split transactions, refunds and category credits;
• estimates a scheduled transaction entered, still waiting for the bank to confirm them;
• transactions on investment accounts.

Nor does it import a waiting transaction that a transfer, a scheduled transaction or one you entered by hand already covers: it is filled in but stays in review, so you can match it.

A rule that is switched off cannot be applied: switch it on first.

Undo

The message after an apply has an Undo button, and every run stays in the rule's History with its own. Undo puts back what the run changed. Anything you have changed since stays as you left it, and the message says how many were left that way. A transaction the run imported goes back to review, filled in, unless you have changed it or attached something to it since. What a run filled in on transactions still waiting in review stays filled in: change it there if you need to.

Rules in the review queue

A transaction a rule filled in says so on its row: Rule: <name>, or N rules when several matched; hover over it to see which. Its description and tags come from the rule, and you can change or remove them before you process it.

Every row also has a Make a rule button (the wand icon). It opens the editor already set up from that transaction: a bank text condition taken from it, whether the money went in or out, and the payee, category (when it fits) and tags the row has now, so you only adjust what you need. The rule can be saved only while it matches the transaction you started from; otherwise the editor says This rule would not match the transaction you started from.

Rules in the payee and transaction dialogs

• When you edit a payee that your rules mention, its dialog shows Rules that mention this payee: N · Manage rules. Manage rules closes the dialog without saving and opens the Rules page showing just those rules, with a Payee: <name> chip. Remove the chip to see every rule again and to change their order.
• When you edit a transaction a rule touched, its dialog says so under the description: Filled in by rule <name> on <date>, Imported by rule <name> on <date> or Changed by rule <name> on <date>.

Your per-payee auto-import

The Auto-import switch in the payee dialog, the amber lightning icon on the Payees tab (under Payees & Categories), and the Automate offer and Auto button in review all keep working. Each per-payee auto-import appears on the Rules page as a rule named after its payee, set to import automatically, and you can edit it there. Change only its category and the payee's switch stays in step; give it another payee, condition or action and it becomes an ordinary rule, managed on the Rules page only. In the app, the Auto-Import Rules screen (under More) can switch these on or off or delete them; new ones are made on the web.

What next

Rules work best on top of good payees: the payees guide covers default categories and matching texts, and reviewing imported transactions covers everything a rule leaves for you to check.