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 the app uses your bank rules, the better it gets at categorising. After a while, it can even scan transactions and add details like payees.

Here's how to set up bank rules.

Step 1: Create a bank rule

1. (Optional) To reorder your bank rules priority, select reorder and drag the rule to your desired order. The rule with the highest priority will always be applied first.
2. Go to Settings and select Rules (Take me there).
3. Select New rule.
   Note: Select Go to Rules if you are adding for the first time. 
4. Enter a name in the What do you want to call this rule? field.
5. From the Apply this to transactions that are ▼ dropdown, select Money in or Money out.
6. From the in ▼ dropdown, select a bank account, or select All bank accounts.
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. 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.
9. Select Transaction type, Category, Product/service, Who you paid, Tax, Who it was for, and Tags to apply.
   Note: You may see different options depending on the company settings you’ve turned on.  
10. Select Save.
11. (Optional) To reorder your bank rules priority, select reorder and drag the rule to your desired order. The rule with the highest priority will always be applied first.

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

Tips: 

• Quickly add a rule for transactions in the For review tab. Just select a transaction, then select the Create a rule link to open the Rule Window and start setting conditions for the rule.
• Copy, Disable/Enable, or Delete bank rules from the Actions ▼ dropdown on the Rules page.

Step 2: Review recognised transactions

View which downloaded transactions were recognised by a bank rule.

From the 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 the app. You can also select and review it before you move it.

Next steps: Set up the auto-add feature

Create targeted rules so that 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 fuel 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. Turn on Auto-add under 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 getting applied to transactions

If your bank rules aren't getting applied, 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 same information the app 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, the app might simplify bank text by just giving the supplier name.

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

1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product
2. Select the Settings ⚙ within the Bank transactions section.
3. Select Show bank details.