Rules and merchants

Arca files most transactions by itself, with two tools: merchants (the places you pay) and rules (if the description looks like this, use that category). You teach both as you go.

Merchants

Every shop, company or person you pay becomes a merchant. Arca creates them from your bank’s descriptions when you import, so “ALBERT HEIJN 1234 AMSTERDAM” and “AH to go 5678” can both be Albert Heijn.

Open a merchant (tap its name on a transaction, or Settings → Merchants) to change:

Name: the friendly name you see everywhere. Renaming updates every transaction linked to it.
Icon: a brand logo, an icon, or your own uploaded image. Many well-known brands get their logo automatically.
Recognised by: the bits of bank text that belong to this merchant (see below).
Category: where this merchant’s transactions go when no rule says otherwise.

The merchant’s profile shows what you spend there: total spent, number of visits, the average, your largest purchase, first and last visit, and a bar per month or year.

Recognised by

Banks write the same shop in different ways. Add each way under Recognised by and Arca links all of them to the one merchant, with its name, logo and category. Each pattern can match as:

Contains: the text appears anywhere in the description.
Whole word: the text stands on its own, so “AH” doesn’t match “MAHLER”.
Exact: the description is exactly this text.

Rules

A rule says: transactions that look like this go to that category. Rules live with their category in Settings → Categories; open a category to see, add or change its rules.

A rule can look at:

the description: contains, whole word or exact (capitals don’t matter),
the amount: exactly an amount, or between two amounts,
the direction: money in only or money out only,
the account: one account only.

Every part is optional, so “everything from my savings account” or “exactly €12.99” are rules too.

Which rule wins

The first rule that matches decides. When two rules catch the same recent transactions, the category shows which one comes first.
A recurring item that matches always decides the category, before any rule.
Rules never overwrite a category you picked by hand, and never clear a category.

Teach it once

Whenever you pick a category for a transaction, Arca asks Always file … as …?

Always: from now on, every transaction from this merchant is filed this way, on every import. Earlier ones move too.
Just this one: only this transaction.
Edit match: change what Arca looks for before saving.

This is the easiest way to build up your rules: just sort your transactions, and say Always for the ones that are always the same.

Check a rule before you save

While you edit a rule, Arca shows which earlier transactions it picks up. Test on the last 90 days goes further: it lists every transaction that would change (“… becomes …”). Saving the rule applies those changes.

When you delete a rule, Arca asks what to do with the transactions it filed: Keep them as they are, or send them back to Needs a category. Transactions you categorised by hand always stay as they are.