Creating rules can help you rename and recategorize your transactions as they come in, automatically. You can set criteria based on merchant name, amount and more and automatically rename the merchant, update category, add tags or even hide the transaction all together.
Table of Contents
- Creating rules on desktop
- Quickly making rules on desktop
- Setting up smart splits on desktop
- Deleting rules
- Order of rules
- Updating rules
Creating rules on desktop
Rules are automations that run every time new, non-pending transactions are received from an account connection.
- Navigate to Settings > Rules.
- Select Create rule.
- Set your If transactions matches criteria...
- Then set your Then apply these updates...
- Select Save to save your changes.
Tip: You can preview your rules by selecting the Preview changes tab.
Quickly making rules on desktop
A rule widget appears automatically when you make any changes to a transaction anywhere in Monarch.
- Select Create rule.
- Set your If transactions matches criteria...
- Then set your Then apply these updates...
- Select Save to save your changes.
Creating a smart splits on desktop
- Navigate to Settings > Rules.
- Select Create rule.
- Set your If transactions matches criteria...
- Please Note: There must be an amount filter set to Equals to automate splitting.
- Select Split transaction.
- Set the rule to split by percentage or by dollar amount.
- Add as many splits as needed by selecting Add a split.
- View impending changes in the Preview changes tab.
- If there are existing transactions that match this criteria, select the checkbox Apply # changes to existing transactions to retroactively update these with this smart split rule.
- Select Save.
Deleting rules
- Navigate to Settings > Rules.
- Select Options.
- Select Delete all rules.
Order of rules
If you have multiple rules they are run in the order they are listed. Meaning if 2 rules match the same transaction the first rule in the list will be applied and then the second rule will be applied. You can reorder rules by dragging and dropping them into a different order.
Updating Rules
The first part of a rule is the If or matching criteria. You can match transaction using these properties:
- Merchant: Use Exactly matches or Contains filters to pinpoint the Merchant Monarch automatically creates or the Original statement.
- Amount: Dollar amounts as either expense or income. Operators include equal to, greater than, less than or a range between.
- Categories: Constrain a rule to run on 1 or more specific categories.
- Accounts: Constrain a rule to run on 1 or more specific accounts.
The second part of a rule is the Then or updates they can make to transactions. You can make these types of changes to transactions with rules:
- Rename merchant: Change the merchant.
- Update category: Change the category.
- Add tags: Add 1 or more specific tags.
- Hide transaction: Hides the transaction from budget and cash flow calculations.
- Review status: Mark transactions as needing review or already reviewed.
- Link to goal: Select a goal to link a transaction to it. Linking to a goal requires having an Account selected in the If column.