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Automatically categorize downloaded transactions based on first chars in name?

Cathy Artigues

I would like all transactions that start with "Tst " to automatically be categorized as "Dining", so I don't have to manually do this every time I eat at a new restaurant that uses the Toast platform to accept payments. Is there any way to accomplish this?

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mshiggins

Hi @Cathy Artigues,

Maybe. How do you handle the transactions? For example, do you rename from Tst McDonalds to just McDonalds?

Cathy Artigues

No, I don't currently rename them, but I wouldn't mind doing it if there were an automated rule that could also set the category at the same time. I don't want to rename everything that starts with "Tst " to the same name though, I would want to keep whatever unique restaurant name follows that string.

Chris_QPW

Is Tst a separate word or does it look like TstMcDonalds?

Currently it is impossible to rename based on partial parts of a word. If it is a separate word you could rename based on it, but it should be noted that you would end up with just one payee. For instance, "Tst McDonalds" and "Tst Burger King" would both end up with the same name unless you use their full names instead of Tst for the renaming rule.

Categorization is always done with Memorized Payees and they have to match exactly except for case. Renaming makes the payee name consistent so that you aren't having to repeat memorized payees.

Cathy Artigues

There's always a space after Tst, as in "Tst Madi", "Tst Allegro Restaurant", etc. Places where we eat regularly are automatically categorized. It's only the first time we eat somewhere that I have to manually add the Dining category. After that it's remembered.

What brought this up was that we were traveling recently and I downloaded about 50 transactions after we got home. Some were automatically categorized by name (e.g. Chevron is always auto-categorized as Auto:Fuel even if it's a station I've never been to before), but all the restaurants had to be manually set as Dining even though at least half of them started with "Tst " and I just thought Quicken should have a way to recognize that common prefix and save me a little bit of work.

UKR

Would enabling these two settings help in the "Tst"-specific case or would it do more harm than good on other downloaded transactions?

Cathy Artigues

I already have those options enabled. As far as I can tell, they do not help Quicken to identify transactions from Toast that start with Tst.

Cathy Artigues

Thanks to all who gave suggestions. I have concluded that there currently isn't a way to automatically categorize transactions based on a substring from the payee name.

Since my Quicken file is about 30 yrs old and has a category structure that's very different from modern files, I conducted an experiment and created a new file and linked one credit card to it. I downloaded two years of data and just accepted all the transactions and let Quicken set the categories.

It seems to be using an incomplete list of hard coded names. It knows Alaska Air is Travel:Air Travel, but it doesn't categorize Southwest Airlines or United flights. Similarly it knows Hilton and Marriott are hotels, but other transactions that have the word Hotel in them are not categorized. Costco and Costco Gas were both categorized as Auto & Transportation:Gas & Fuel.

For restaurants, it categorized two transactions out of a hundred or so. One is a major chain restaurant and the other is "TST*LA ROSA TEQUILERIA & Santa Rosa CA". I can only assume that some Quicken employee eats at La Rosa and has recorded their name in a database, because all the other transactions from Toast and all the non-toast ones that actually contain the word Restaurant were not categorized.

Chris_QPW

"I have concluded that there currently isn't a way to automatically categorize transactions based on a substring from the payee name."

Based on what you said also about being on vacation and these being new payees, yes, then the only thing possible is Quicken guess options, and being guesses and such that can vary a lot as far as if will do what you want or not. It is basically the reason I don't use that option.

For TST (as a separate word, and most likely the TST* one too) to work you need to set the renaming rule to "if payee contains" like this (Not "If Quicken name is"):

The reason why "Apple" matches "*Apple" is because it considers the * as a word separator. In other words it is treated as "white space".

As for the other rules mentioned.

Personally, I always leave "Automatic categorize transactions" off because if my renaming/memorized payee list doesn't catch the payee then I want it to be blank so that I can quickly identify it and create a memorized payee for it. I don't want Quicken guessing at the category. That option is fine when starting out, but not so useful after you have filled out categories how you like and are only getting new payees rarely.

I do have "Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee" on but that rarely actually kicks in.

The first thing to understand about both of these that your rules come first. If your memorized payee matches it is used and "Automatic categorize transactions" isn't. If your renaming rule matches, then it is used and "Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee" isn't.

Now going back to the idea of matching transactions that start with TST using the renaming rules. Even though it is possible to do, it is something that I personally would never do. One would be picking one payee name for all the transactions that come in like this. The reason I have no problem doing this for Apple is because we only have one bill for Apple to pay for some extra iCloud space for images on my wife's phone. I certainly wouldn't want all my fast-food transactions to have a payee of "Fast Food" even though all of them have the category of Dining. So, yes, I have renaming rules for every fast-food restaurant and a memorized payee to go with it, but you can build these up quite quickly and then it is just new places you go to that you have to add one time. Note that the need for a renaming rule all depends on if the name is consistent or not (You change Safeway #4343 to Safeway because it isn't consistent and needs to be to match one memorized payee) or because you just don't like the name. For instance, TST*Burger King changed to just Burger King, and have that the memorized payee even though it would be possible to have a memorized payee of "TST*Burger King",

I will also point out that "If payee contains" is a bit misleading. This option will also match words in the downloaded memo.

And I guess one more thing a renaming rule "if payee contains" of "Burger King" will match "DFDF Burger King dfdsfsd" but not "King Burger". If you use more than one word in your rule, they have to be in the right sequence.

Note I do have the automatic renaming rule creation on, but with it confirming them. Also, I'm not sure what actually gets Quicken to select "If payee contains" instead of "Quicken name is" when it automatically creates them. I think the default is "Quicken name is", but for some reason it seems to pick "If payee name" for me. Maybe because that is what I always use and it is the last selected one. I don't know. But it is important to make sure it isn't "Quicken name is" because the rules for that are quite different and also bring in some of that "guessing". As in "Quicken Name" is looked up on their server and I believe it is based on what kinds of information is provided by the store/credit card.

On the subject of vacations, I actually find the opposite kind of problem. If you are one that wants a different category or adding a tag to transactions that are from your vacation, there just isn't any automatic way to do that. You either have to enter the transactions manually and then match or fix them up after the fact, by doing something like Find and Replace.