I have an auto cat rule that isn’t overriding the transaction amount. I know the rule is successfully running because it’s the only rule for that category and the category is updating in the transaction spreadsheet. If I remove the category from the transaction and re-run auto cat, it will update again each time without problem. However, the “Amount” column isn’t being updated. It’s listed in the “Amount” column on the “AutoCat” sheet but nothing is changing. I also tried removing the Category override to see if it would work just as an amount override by itself but that didn’t work either. And the Transactions column is still “Amount” I didn’t change that. Thanks for your help.
Yeah, I was just playing with this the other day and experienced the same. Just curious, though, why do you want to override the amount that’s coming from an financial institution? Maybe there’s another way to solve the problem.
I want the gross amount for my paycheck to be listed for my payroll deposit instead of the net amount that actually hits the account. I then manually add a bunch of other transactions to categorize all of the payroll deductions (i.e. health insurance, 401k contribution, tax withheld, etc.) I have a separate sheet that generates all of these transactions that I copy-paste into the transaction spreadsheet. Those aren’t the issue though, I’m just trying to automate updating the deposit amount.
The more I think about it, since I’m already adding in transactions, I suppose it’s just as simple to add one more for the gross pay - and then categorize the actual net deposit to the account to a hidden category.
I think it’s probably that AutoCat can’t override the Amount column. I’m not 100% WHY that is, but likely just the behavior that’s written into the code.
Recommend adding a feature request if you want it to be able to override amounts.
For greater context, our product team prioritizes bugs, issues, and requests based on the severity of the issue and how many customers are impacted or requesting this feature. To provide insight on expectations, issues like this may not be actioned for many months or at all if it’s not a widespread issue. That timeline is based on the team’s current existing log of issues and upcoming feature releases which is subject to change.
I have two scenarios where I want to affect the Amount:
My brokerage account is showing a deposit of interest, followed by a purchase of a fund, resulting in the balance not reflecting the interest. I’d like the purchase of the fund to be $0 and add a Note about fund purchase so I can track the balance properly.
Payments to my car loan are being downloaded as charges, so I have to add a note to remind myself to change the entry to a deposit manually.
Any other suggestions on how to handle downloaded transaction like this where the Amount causes issues, since AutoCat can’t affect the Amount?
Your post was some time ago, so you likely have a workflow that suits your purpose. However, here’s how I’ve addressed that situation.
I create 2 Autocat rules for each fund that looks for the name of the fund. One rule checks for positive polarity in the transaction amount, and puts that transaction in the Interest & Dividends category. This adds the transaction value to the account balance.
A second rule looks for negative polarity and puts that transaction in the Transfers category and reduces the balance by that amount.
When a dividend or interest is paid in cash, and then reinvested in that same fund, your account cash balance does not change, and as these two sum to zero, Tiller stays in sync with your brokerage.
If simple interest is paid, or a fund does not reinvest dividends, your cash balance increases. In this case Tiller does not find a negative transaction for that fund, and Tiller stays in step with your brokerage.
With this method, Tiller keeps accurate totals for the interest and dividends paid by each fund while matching the cash balance of your brokerage.
These rules look for the Description of each fund, which I have found varies slightly from time to time in the downloads. I keep an eye out for these variations, and add my preferred variant to the Autocat rule to enforce that Description. That way my reports have comprehensive and consistent totals.
This process covers the majority of transactions in my passively-managed brokerage accounts. Trades made to rebalance asset categories or to generate cash, occur less frequently and usually involve larger amounts, and I periodically scan for these and recategorize them as Trades, which is a Transfer type of category. This last step keeps my totals for Interest and Dividends accurate for each fund.
I appreciate the response. I’m not following how the difference in Category you describe avoids affecting the balance. How are you tracking balance from your transactions in general to compare to the balance downloaded from your broker?
I wasn’t aware of a “Trades” category. Is that a standard category or one you created?
Unlike in a cash account, where an interest payment increases the total account balance, payments of interest or dividends in an investment account only increase the cash balance of the account. The valuation of the stock/fund/bond that paid the dividend is typically reduced by the same amount, so those dollars have just moved from holdings into cash. Total account balance may not change.
When dividends are reinvested, those dollars move from cash back into holdings.
The Dividends and Interest category tallies as Income only the first event. Since the second event is categorized as a Transfer, Tiller ignores it in reports. That way, I can see real investment income, unaffected by any reinvestment. Trades is a category I created (also Transfer type) that functions similarly,
The account balance Tiller gets from the institution doesn’t break out cash balance from total balance, and Tiller doesn’t maintain any holdings information, so there is no way for Tiller to calculate the difference. The best I can do is confirm that Tiller has recorded all the transactions shown on my brokerage statement, and in the correct amounts. If this is the case, the Tiller balance will match the “bank” balance. If not, I would look for some error or omission.
I’ve dabbled in the beta Tiller Holdings Report, which in theory would make it possible to calculate holdings value independently. I haven’t yet found it to be useful in my situation.
Please excuse the exhausting detail. Just my way of making sense of it. I hope it’s useful in some way.
I understand the concepts you’re describing about investment accounts, and the limitations of the data downloads from Tiller. Maybe, because I’m not using any of the default report sheets or budget sheets from Tiller, I’m not seeing any benefit of differentiating a Trade from Dividend payment, except I guess I do capture Dividends as an addition to my Saving category (and tag it as taxable income).
As it is, I basically ignore any transaction data for my investment accounts. I use them to verify activity in my account, but I don’t calculate transaction totals relative to account balance. In addition to dividend and interest payments, the holdings themselves are changing in value constantly, and those unrealized changes in value are not captured anywhere relative to the amount originally invested.
My “solution” for my one brokerage account that is more like a savings account is to set the Amount of a fund purchase to $0 to avoid it reducing my overall account balance. My original post here was looking for a way to do this with AutoCat, but it’s not an option.