Creating Rules
Rules are automations that run every time new transactions are received from an account connection. The easiest way to create a rule is from the "toast" that pops up every time you make changes to a transaction:
You can also create rules manually on the Rules Settings screen:
Ordering
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 to a different order.
Criteria & Updates
The first part of a rule is the "if" or matching criteria. You can match transaction using these properties:
- Merchant - full or partial text match using the merchant Monarch automatically creates or the original statement text
- 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.
Manually Running
Rules only run on new transactions when they arrive - they do not make changes to existing transactions already in Monarch. If you would like to make changes to existing transactions with a rule you can do so on the same screen you edit a rule. A preview of the changes with the ability to apply the updates is shown on the rule itself:
