Categorization rules

Categorizing the same payees by hand every month gets old. A rule teaches Doric to do it for you: when a transaction matches the conditions you set, Doric suggests a category or payee — and you approve it with a single keystroke.

Getting there

Click the Rules icon in the left sidebar to open the Categorization Rules page. The top half is a builder for new rules; the bottom half, Your rules, lists the ones you already have.

Rules suggest — they don't silently rewrite. A matching rule attaches a suggestion to an uncategorized transaction, shown faded in the register until you accept it. Transactions you've already categorized are left untouched. Nothing changes your books without your say-so.

Building a rule

A rule reads like a sentence: When a transaction matches all of [your conditions], then suggest [a category or payee]. Build it top to bottom.

1. Set the conditions

Each condition has a field, an operator, and a value. Pick the field from the dropdown:

Description — contains or equals the text you type (matching is case-insensitive).
Payee — is a payee you choose.
Amount — >, <, ≥, ≤, =, or between two amounts.
Account — is one of your bank or credit-card accounts.

The NOT toggle inverts a condition — match everything that doesn't fit (available on every field except Amount). Click + Add condition to stack more; a transaction must match all of them for the rule to fire, so extra conditions narrow the rule rather than widen it. The × on a condition removes it.

2. Choose what to suggest

Under then suggest, pick the outcome with the Category / Payee toggle:

Category — search for the category to suggest. A direction toggle appears next to it: Any, + In (money in only), or − Out (money out only). Use it when a payee should map to different categories depending on the sign — for instance, only suggest an expense category for money going out.
Payee — search for the payee to assign. Handy for tidying cryptic bank descriptions into a clean payee name.

3. Add the rule

Click Add Rule. Doric saves it and immediately scans your existing uncategorized transactions, attaching suggestions to any that match — so a new rule pays off right away, not just on future transactions.

Approving what a rule suggests

Head to the register and you'll see the suggested category or payee shown in a faded style on matching rows. Approve it with a keystroke, or filter the register to just the rows with pending suggestions to clear them in a batch. See The Register for how approving suggestions works.

Managing your rules

Your rules is a sortable, filterable table: Type (Category or Payee), Suggests (the target), Direction, and When (a summary of the conditions). Click a column header to sort, or use the filter row to find a rule in a long list. Delete removes a rule and clears the suggestions it produced.

The ⟳ Rescan button at the top re-runs every rule across your uncategorized transactions at once — useful after importing a fresh batch, or after editing your rules, to make sure every suggestion is up to date.

Tip: you don't have to build every rule here. When you categorize a row by hand while triaging an import, Doric offers to Remember that payee → category choice — which quietly creates a rule for you. See Importing transactions.

Where to go next

Learn how suggestions are approved in The Register, and how rules speed up triaging a fresh file in Importing transactions.