Create a rule

Teach Pentos to categorise, rename, or annotate transactions automatically.

A rule matches transactions and changes them. Once a payee has one, its transactions arrive already filed.

There are two ways to make one: accept the offer Pentos makes while you work, or build one in the full editor.

The quick way

Categorise a transaction from a payee Pentos has not seen before, and it offers to remember the choice.

  1. Open a transaction and set its Category.
  2. Tap Create Rule when Pentos offers.

That builds a rule matching the payee and setting the category, which covers most of what rules are for.

The full editor

Use this when you need more than “this payee, this category”.

  1. Open the Settings tab and tap Rules.

  2. Tap Add Rule.

  3. Under When all / any of these are true, tap Add Condition and set a Field, an Operator, and a value.

    FieldMatches on
    Imported payeeThe raw name from the statement, before any renaming
    PayeeThe payee as it stands now
    AccountWhich account the transaction is in
    CategoryIts current category
    DateWhen it happened
    NotesAnything in the note, tags included
    AmountThe amount, or inflow and outflow separately

  4. Choose AND or OR for how conditions combine.

  5. Tap Add Action and choose what to change: set the category, set the payee, set the notes, or set cleared.

    A rule takes at most one action of each kind.

  6. Set Runs In if this rule must go Before or After the others. Leave it on Normal unless you have a reason.

  7. Tap Preview Changes to see what it would do before saving.

  8. Tap Save.

Passes, and why they exist

Rules run in three passes: Before, Normal, then After.

That ordering lets one rule tidy a payee name and a second rule match the tidied version. Put the renaming rule in Before and the categorising rule in Normal, and they run in the order you meant.

Without passes, a rule matching on a name another rule was about to change would fire unpredictably.

Tip

Match on Imported payee rather than Payee for anything driven by a statement. The imported value is what the bank actually sent, so the rule keeps working after you have renamed the payee to something readable.

Turning a rule off

Turn off Enabled rather than deleting. The rule stops running and stays available, which is what you want while working out whether it was the one causing a surprise.

Next steps