Beware the Ampersand!

Spreadsheets Google Sheets
1

Just in case anyone else needs this…

I recently set up an Autocat rule that had an ampersand (&) in the description and even though it was the exact string I was trying to match, it never matched. Once I surrounded the description with quotes, it worked.

Always quote text with an “&”.

Edit for clarity: I usually enter the string in the Description Contains column without quotes. It matches the whole contents to the incoming Description column. I usually only use quotes if I am matching multiple possible strings; one string OR another (OR another): “savemore auto”,“good deal auto”,“cheap cars”.

For example, I want charges from Ben & Jerry’s to be categorized as Ice Cream, so Ice Cream goes in the Category column in the AutoCat sheet. If I put this in the Description Contains column:

Ben & Jerry’s

It will not match anything. Instead put:

“Ben & Jerry’s”

And it will correctly match any description containing that string and put Ice Cream in the Category column.

I haven’t had this issue with other special characters. For example, I can match the four characters “wci*” without using quote marks.

2

Good to know! A lot of my Autocat rules contain an ampersand in the description or category, and from time to time I’ve had problems with some of them not matching. Thanks for the tip. I’ll be adding some quotes, for sure.

3

What type of matching are you doing? Description Contains or Description Regex?

If it’s Description Contains, are the rules you are referencing using the multiple match, separators?

e.g.
"Starbucks","Counter Culture","Peets"

4

Description Contains. I have a few rules that use multiple match separators, but those haven’t been the ones that occasionally get skipped. It’s been a while since iI’ve had one skipped; next time, I’ll look for an ampersand or another anomaly in the rule.