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Intuit
Intuit
‎March 12, 2019 03:51 PM

Set up bank rules to categorise online banking transactions in QuickBooks Online

Learn how to use bank rules to automatically categorise transactions from your bank.

When you download transactions from your bank, you need to categorise them so they go into the right accounts. Bank rules speed up this review process.

You can create rules that automatically categorise transactions for you. The more QuickBooks uses your bank rules, the better it gets at categorising. After a while, it can even scan transactions and add details like payees.

Step 1: Create a bank rule

  1. Go to Bookkeeping and select Rules (Take me there).
  2. Select New rule.
  3. Enter a name in the What do you want to call this rule? field.
  4. From the Apply this to transactions that are ▼ dropdown, select Money in or Money out.
  5. From the In ▼ dropdown, select the bank account.
  6. Set the rule conditions. You can set a single rule with up to 5 conditions. Set and include the following, then select + Add a condition.
  7. In the Conditions fields, specify whether the rule applies to Description, Bank text, or Amount. Then select Contains, Doesn't contain, or Is exactly to decide how QuickBooks applies the rules.
  8. Select the settings for the rule. Select the Transaction type, Category, and the Payee to apply.
  9. Select Save.

QuickBooks automatically applies your rules to transactions in the For review tab. These are the ones you need to review every day.

Tip: You can quickly add a rule for transactions in the For review tab. Just choose a transaction then select Create a rule link to open the Rule Window and start setting conditions for the rule.

Step 2: Review recognised transactions

You can view which downloaded transactions were recognised by a bank rule. While inside your For review tab, select Recognised from the All transactions ▼ dropdown menu. This will list all transactions that were recognised by any bank rule. You’ll also see a "Rule" label added to the transaction.

If everything looks good, select Add to move the transactions directly into an account in QuickBooks. You can also select and review it before you move it.

Note: If QuickBooks doesn't know how to categorise a transaction, it uses the Uncategorised Income, Uncategorised Expense, or Uncategorised Asset accounts to temporarily hold them.
You can't use these accounts to create bank rules.

Next steps: Set up the auto-add feature

You can create targeted rules so specific transactions are automatically accepted into your books from the Bank transactions (Take me there)page.

Tip: We recommend starting with easy, consistent transactions like rent or gas expenses first. Once you get the hang of the feature, you can use it to cover more transactions.

  1. Follow the steps to create a new bank rule.
  2. Select Automatically confirm transactions this rule applies to in the Rules window.
  3. Select Save.

After you create an auto-add rule, any transactions on the For review tab that meet the conditions are automatically added. Auto-add rules run when you sign in, upload a file, or create or modify a new auto-add rule.

If your bank rules aren't applying to transactions

If your bank rules aren't applying, it might be because you’re using a rule based on bank text when you meant to make a rule based on description, or vice versa. To explain the difference:

  • The bank text is exactly the information QuickBooks receives from the bank. The bank text is the transaction you'd see listed in your bank account or on your bank statement
  • The description is a simplified version of the bank text to make it easier to understand. For example, QuickBooks might simplify bank text to just say a supplier name.

By default, QuickBooks shows the description in your list of transactions. To show the bank text instead:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Above the table, go to Settings ⚙.
  3. Select Show bank details.