When you import transactions from a bank statement, Financio automatically applies your rules and provides AI-powered category suggestions for new merchants. This page explains how automation works during the import process.
How Rules Apply During Import
As each transaction is imported, Financio checks it against your existing rules in order. When a transaction matches a rule's conditions, the rule's actions are applied automatically.
This means:
- Merchants you've seen before are instantly categorised
- Tags are applied without manual effort
- Messy bank descriptions are cleaned up
After import, transactions that matched a rule display a sparkle icon in the results. Click the icon to see which rules were applied and what actions they performed.
AI Category Insights
For transactions that don't match any existing rules, Financio's AI analyzes the merchant name and suggests appropriate categories.
Transactions with AI suggestions display a lightbulb icon. A banner at the top of the results shows how many transactions have suggestions available.
AI Uses Your Categories
Suggestions are based on your existing category structure, so they match how you organise your finances.
Creating Rules from Suggestions
When you see a good AI suggestion, you can accept it and create a rule in one click:
-
Click the lightbulb icon on a transaction with a suggestion.
-
Review the suggested category.
-
Click Accept & Create Rule.
This does three things:
- Creates a new rule matching the merchant name
- Applies the category to all matching transactions in the current import
- Ensures future imports of the same merchant are automatically categorised
Batch Processing
When you accept a suggestion, Financio finds all other transactions in the same import with the same merchant and applies the category to them too.
Viewing the Results
After import completes, the results table shows:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Date | Transaction date |
| Type | Spend or Receive |
| Merchant | Cleaned merchant name (if a rule renamed it) |
| Description | Original bank description |
| Category | Applied category (from rule or suggestion) |
| Amount | Transaction amount |
| Icons | Sparkle (rule applied) or Lightbulb (suggestion available) |
Best Practices
Build rules as you go
Each import is an opportunity to improve automation. When you see AI suggestions for merchants you'll encounter again, accept them to build your rule library.
Review before accepting
AI suggestions are usually accurate, but review them before accepting. Once a rule is created, it will apply to all future transactions from that merchant.
Check the rules page
After a few imports, visit the Rules page to review automatically created rules. You can edit them to add tags, refine conditions, or adjust the category.