Create-and-Apply Rule

jeff-y

It would be nice when categorizing transactions to create rule and apply the rule. Otherwise, it's necessary to select the category twice: once to create a rule, and once to apply them. It's like having to categorize all transactions 2x.

jacobs

@jeff-y Good news; you can already do this! 😀

When you're entering a transaction for a Payee, when you enter the category, just check the blue pop-up above the category field to create a QuickFill rule:

Notice that you can select the save a rule with "all fields" — Amount, Tag, Memo, in addition to Category — or click the arrow to change it to "Category" if you only want the category stored as a rule for this Payee.

If you do this often, then you can go to Settings > Register and set your preference to default to this checkbox being checked all the time; you can then uncheck it on a transaction where you don't want a QuickFill rule created:

jeff-y

Hi @jacobs,

Here's a video showing that I have to categorize existing transactions twice! Actually, three times, since the screenshot shows QuickFill created a rule to category "Uncategorized".

quicken-categorize-twice.small.gif

Screenshot 2024-10-30 at 3.03.51 PM.png

jacobs

In your movie, in the very first thing you did, I'll note that you could have selected "Open Payee & Rules list" from the dropdown menu:

Then you could have created the QuickFile rule for this Payee.

In most cases, you're doing this for a single new transaction for a Payee, so you'll be all set for future instances of this Payee.

But in this case, you have multiple past transactions for this Payee which are uncategorized (or possibly incorrectly categorized). What you can do in that case is select all three transactions (click on the first, then Shift-click on the last, or Command-click on each one if they aren't together in your register view), and select Transactions > Edit Transaction. In the Transaction Information window which opens, you can check Category and enter the desired category; when you press OK, the category on all the transactions will be changed at once.

And since you also want to create a rule for this Payee and category, just click on any one of the transactions which has now been categorized, and select Transactions > Save QuickFill Rule (or just press Command-Y), then click Save.

So if it's a single transaction for a Payee you need to categorize, I'd categorize it first in the register, and either make sure the pop-up blue "Save QuickFill Rule for this payee" is checked so a rule will be created when you save the transaction — or save the transaction and press Command-Y to create the rule. You shouldn't need to categorize a transaction twice in any case. 😀

jeff-y

It's still a lot of clicks, but that works well enough for me. Thank you!

jacobs

Glad to help. Remember that going forward, when you enter or categorize a transaction, it's only a single mouse click (for the "Save QuickFill Rule for this payee" checkbox) or a single key command (Command-Y) to save a QuickFill rule for the Payee. (But cleaning up a lot of older transactions which are uncategorized or incorrectly categorized does involve some extra steps to select and edit them.)