Creating, Editing, and Deleting Category Rules

💡 Overview

Category Rules automatically assign downloaded transactions to the correct expense, income, or transfer categories based on patterns in your bank data. Where Payee Rules identify who the transaction is with, Category Rules define what kind of transaction it is — like office supplies, fuel, or client payments.

These rules are especially useful for business owners who want to:

• Ensure tax-deductible expenses go to the right category every time

• Automate bookkeeping across recurring transactions (e.g., software subscriptions, utilities)

• Maintain clean financial reports for year-end accounting, audits, or profitability tracking

You’ll want to create Category Rules if:

• You regularly recategorize the same types of transactions

• You're preparing for Schedule C filing

• You use the same vendor for both business and personal purchases and need to separate them

• You want faster, more accurate monthly reporting with less manual work

🔍 What's Your Situation?

Scenario 1️⃣: You always buy office supplies at Staples, but your downloaded transactions are marked "Uncategorized"
→ Use: A Category Rule to automatically assign “Office Expenses”

Scenario 2️⃣: You get monthly charges from “Zoom” that should always be classified as Software
→ Use: A Category Rule based on keyword “Zoom” and amount range

Scenario 3️⃣: You want client payments from Stripe to be marked as “Business Income”
→ Use: A Category Rule that targets Stripe as the merchant and classifies as income

Scenario 4️⃣: You use Amazon for both personal and business purchases
→ Use: Two Category Rules that trigger based on keywords like "supplies" vs. "gifts" in the description

🛠 How to Create or Edit a Category Rule

You can create Category Rules in two ways: directly from the Rules settings, or from an individual transaction.

Option 1: From Settings

Use this when: You want to create a rule based on keywords or patterns across multiple transactions.

Steps:

1. Go to the left-hand panel and select Settings

2. Click Rules

3. Select + Rule

4. Choose whether to use the original bank name or the Simplifi-renamed name for matching

5. Enter keyword(s) Quicken Simplifi should look for in downloaded transactions
   (Use partial names like “zoom” instead of “Zoom Communications Inc.”)

6. Check Update Category, then choose the category you want to assign

   • For business accounts, check the box to “Use default account usage” to apply business categories

7. Click Continue to Review

8. Choose whether to apply the rule to existing transactions, then click Create Rule

Option 2: From a Transaction

Use this when: You want to fix and automate categorization directly from a transaction you’re reviewing.

Steps:

1. Find the transaction and open the Category dropdown

2. Check Create a rule to use this category for future transactions

3. Select the new Category and confirm when the Create Rule window opens

4. Choose the source for matching (original or Simplifi name)

5. Confirm or add keywords

6. (Optional) Select Use default account usage for business transactions

7. Click Continue to Review

8. Choose whether to apply to past transactions, then click Create Rule

📌 Best Practices for Category Rules

• Be specific with keywords to avoid misclassification (e.g., use “AWS” instead of just “Amazon”)

• Avoid using amount alone unless it’s for a fixed-price subscription

• Review your rules monthly or quarterly to make sure they still make sense

• Use description-based keywords to separate purchases from multi-use vendors (e.g., Target)

• For mixed-use merchants, combine rules with tags (e.g., “Marketing + Client A”)

Managing and Deleting Rules

• Navigate to Settings > Rules

• Select the Category Rule you want to update

• Click to Edit, Disable, or Delete

• Reorder rules using Move Up / Move Down if conflicts arise