How-to guide: Setting up Rules
You can use Finmo to automate the categorisation of your income and expenses. So instead of manually tagging every transaction as business or personal, you can make rules that prompt Finmo to do this for you.
This feature saves you a ton of time when managing your finances. And it helps you to catch every single expense, too (doing things manually often leads to things being missed). The result? More money saved on your tax bill, and more time to do the things you actually enjoy. Phew.
Finmo can suggest Rules for you, too
So you don’t miss any opportunities to save time, Finmo’s smart technology spots potential Rules for you. It does this by looking for repeat transactions and grouping them together.
When you get a Rule Suggestion, all you have to do is confirm you’re happy with it and Finmo will automatically tag the relevant transactions (past and future) for you.
Let’s take a closer look
Say, for example, you often shop in a certain store for work supplies. Instead of making a note every time you buy something there, you can create a rule that means Finmo automatically tags these transactions as ‘Business’. Or for work income, you can create a rule that means all payments made by your clients are tagged as ‘Business’.
You can do the same for purchases made at your local supermarket, so they’re always tagged as ‘Personal’. Likewise for anything else you spend that’s not work-related.
Finally, the same goes for tax relief. Create rules for payments into pension schemes, for example, so they’re always marked down as ‘Tax Relief’ – which will go even further towards helping us provide an accurate tax estimate for you.
How to make rules in Finmo
There are two ways you can create rules in Finmo. You can:
- Log into the Finmo app
- Tap the tick icon on the lower navigation bar
- Tap Create Rule
- Search for the a merchant or source of funds, for example ‘Sainsburys’ or a particular client’s name
- Tap a transaction
- Tap Freelance, Personal or Tax Relief
- Tap Create Rule
Or you can:
- Tap the dots icon in the lower navigation bar
- Tap Tag Transactions
- Tap Freelance, Personal or Tax Relief
- Tap Create Rule
- Tap Tag All to tag all transactions past and future as your chosen tag
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do rules work?
When Finmo receives a transaction from your bank, your bank sends a description of that transaction and sometimes sends the name of the merchant to Finmo. When you create a rule, Finmo looks for other transactions with the same description and tags them all the same (so as business, personal or tax relief, depending on which tag you choose). When new transactions come in, Finmo will run that transaction through your Rules and tag it with the appropriate tag if it matches.
Why doesn’t my rule tag all my transactions from that merchant?
With some transactions, Finmo may not receive the merchant name from your bank, or your bank might include a date or other transaction based identifier. Unfortunately, these are specific to that individual transaction, which means it may never match any other transaction you make. Some banks are better than others with regards to this, and Finmo is working to constantly improve our Rules matching logic.
Do rules tag automatically for both past and future transactions?
Yes, Rules are designed to automate the tagging of all transactions, both historic and future.
Do I need to check that my rules are working?
No. If you’re using Reconcile, you’ll notice if a Rule isn’t working, as you’ll see that some transactions appear untagged.
If I delete a rule, do all my transactions become untagged?
No, past transactions won’t lose their tags – if you delete a rule, only future transactions will cease to be tagged..
Can I make a rule that applies to transactions on a certain day?
No, but if you ever have any thoughts on how to make our Rules feature better, please email us at support@finmo.co.uk. We’re always open to new ideas!
What if I make a mistake in creating a rule, can I change it?
Unfortunately you can’t change something like this in bulk. You’d have to go back through and re-tag each transaction. If you did make a mistake, we might be able to help change all of those transactions back – just email us at support@finmo.co.uk, and we’ll be happy to take a look at your account.
What if I make a mistake in creating a rule, can I delete it?
Yes, you can delete the rule so that none of those specific transactions are tagged going forwards, but it won’t delete the tags going backwards. If you do need to delete past tags, you can email us at support@finmo.co.uk, and we’ll take a look at your account to see if we can help.
What happens if I have two rules that are conflicting? Which one works?
Finmo will use the most recent rule you have made when new transactions come in.