I like the AI-fueled autocat, however, it’s sometimes a little too ambitious. Purchases from Amazon are the best example. These are being given a category, which is usually incorrect, as my Amazon purchases may be for any one of several categories. Can I prevent transactions containing Amazon from being categorized?
AutoCat rules run first, so I’d create an Amazon rule like “Full Description contains” and set it to “Amazon”,“AMZN” and then leave Category blank but change “Description” to “Amazon”. I’d think that because a rule ran on this transaction, even though it didn’t change the Category, that AI woudn’t then run again on the same transaction. Give it a try and let us know!
Thanks for the reply. For clarification?
- I don’t have a column header for Full Description contains, but I have one for Description Contains. I’m assuming this one is the one to use, correct?
- I already have had a rule for Description Contains = Amazon, category blank, Description = Amazon. This hasn’t superceded the auto-fillin.
- I’m not sure what you mean by “Amazon”,“AMZN”. What would I enter into the cell:
“Amazon”,“AMZN”
Amazon,AMZN
Create two separate rules for Amazon and AMZN??
Thanks again.
@bbruck Hi Bill, you should have a Full Description column in the Transaction sheet. If you are not seeing it, the column may be hidden or sized really small or you have an older Tiller Template. Full Description contains the description as received from the aggregator. Description is where one would normally make changes to. The Full Description can always be used to restore the Description value if needed.
In the AutoCAT sheet, you can just add a column and set the header to “Full Description contains” (you can do the same for any column you have, even custom ones that you want to ‘evaluate’). The “Amazon”,“AMZN” part is what it’s looking for in “Full Description contains” column (you can separate multiple values in quotes with commas, so it’s just one rule), in this case it looking for “Amazon” OR “AMZN” (I sometimes get transactions that have either of those in them). You could create multiple rules and put them in order, but if the outcome of the rule is the same, it’s cleaner to create just one rule. You say you have a rule that looks at the Description column and if it sees it it leaves the category blank. I’m not positive that this works (seems like it should, but you might want to try changing something else just to get a confirmation). Seeing 'Rule’s in the ‘Categorized By’ column will then confirm for you that it ran.
Thanks jpfieber. I’ve changed the rules and let’s see what happens. Will take a few days before another Amazon purchase syncs. Hmm - or possibly that’s a reason I should go buy some stuff right now!!!
I also have some rules that leave the category blank and that part works fine. But I think in this case, you’ll need to actually categorize it so that AI won’t touch it.
Here are a couple category name suggestions to consider:
Amazon
Uncategorized
And then when you are looking for categories that need to be categorized, you’ll need to also look for whatever category name you decided, and then manually categorize them as you desire.
And then your Autocat would look something like this:
You can test Autocat by manually deleting one of the relevant transaction’s categories and manually running Autocat from the console or extension.
Thanks! Works perfectly!!!
Just to clarify here and for others who may come across this, you don’t need to use Full Description Contains, Description Contains should work correctly for this scenario.
@Mark.S is right that you do need to set a category here since AI Suggest will try to categorize anything that’s uncategorized.
We have this documented as an “Exclusion Rule” here:
The reason I prefer using Full Description Contains is mostly for Autocat testing purposes. I can just delete the Category and rerun Autocat. If I use Description Contains, then I sometimes would need to copy Full Description into Description during testing since the Description may have changed and Full Description never changes.