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auto-guess category tag

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James Symon

Mar 30, 2017 @ 07:15 PM

I want an extension that will fill in category tags based on matching description. Don't see one.

My credit card qfx file does not give a category. I must change the categories by hand.

I'd like to have a tool that would search for a matching description field starting from the oldest transaction and change the current transaction's category to match that of the first discovered description match.

Even better I suppose would be to find the last description matched transaction whose category does not match that of the current transaction in case I have changed my mind recently about categorization but did not go back to old transactions for whatever reason.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Sean Reilly on Mar 31, 2017 @ 08:04 AM

   

   Hi James,

   Thanks for your message! Moneydance actually already does the category setting that you describe as part of importing and confirming transactions from OFX/QFX/OFC files. It uses fuzzy matching on the description, memo, and other fields to find likely candidates for matching, but only looks at confirmed transactions to do so, because they've already been processed and ok initially "cleaned up".

   We also are about to release a new API and feature that imports from text files (like CSV) that does the same sort of matching and merging.

   Could you give this a try and let us know if it doesn't do what you're looking for?

   Thanks!
   Sean

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2. 2 Posted by Jim Symon on Mar 31, 2017 @ 03:55 PM

   

   Very close but I was hoping for something to do it in a batch mode for all
   or a large number of transactions. This seems to be limited to one at a
   time, right? I assume that is because there might be a choice to make but
   if it would just automatically choose the most recent it could do it for a
   batch.

   Maybe I am missing some way to do that?

   Thanks

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Sean Reilly on Mar 31, 2017 @ 04:03 PM

   

   Hi Jim,

   Yes, in the current interface the confirmation happens one at a time. Although the cleanup/categorisation should be happening as a batch when the transactions are first downloaded or imported. If so, then you can batch-confirm them by shift-clicking (or using ctrl/⌘+A) in the register and hitting the confirm button for the entire selection.

   It is possible you may need to enable this behaviour in the Network section of the preferences by checking the Automatically Merge Downloaded Transactions box.

   Can you let me know if that doesn't solve it for you? Please keep in mind that you'll still need to have some existing already-downloaded-and-confirmed transactions around for Moneydance to learn the categorisation.

   Thanks!

   • Edit

4. 4 Posted by Jim Symon on Mar 31, 2017 @ 04:19 PM

   

   ​My first step was to download a year and a half of credit card
   transactions and we use our card a lot. Whew!

   The credit card site allowed me to choose how many months would be in the
   download file. Do you think it would work to categorize a few months of
   what I have, delete the rest, get a new download file for the rest of the
   transactions, and import that new file? Would you expect it automatically
   to categorize everything in the new import file based on what I had already
   categorized? Would the categorization happen when first imported or when I
   batch confirm?

   Thanks

   • Edit

5. 5 Posted by Jim Symon on Mar 31, 2017 @ 04:36 PM

   

   Just noticed something interesting. In the memo field there is a huge
   number, presumably the VISA transaction number, that is different for each
   transaction. That is followed by a five digit number that is the same for
   similar payees. I bet that is categorization. I wonder whether there is any
   industry standard for these. Don't suppose Moneydance knows them? Maybe I
   should try to write a Moneydance plugin to read them and translate to the
   category field! Sound possible?

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6. 6 Posted by Jim Symon on Mar 31, 2017 @ 04:52 PM

   

   I found out these are Merchant Category Codes and are available in pdf
   files online. A Moneydance tool would need to extract it from the memo
   field and use it to index into a file or array to translate it into a
   Moneydance category and enter it.

   On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 12:36 PM, Jim Symon <[email blocked]> wrote:

   > Just noticed something interesting. In the memo field there is a huge
   > number, presumably the VISA transaction number, that is different for each
   > transaction. That is followed by a five digit number that is the same for
   > similar payees. I bet that is categorization. I wonder whether there is any
   > industry standard for these. Don't suppose Moneydance knows them? Maybe I
   > should try to write a Moneydance plugin to read them and translate to the
   > category field! Sound possible?
   >
   >
   > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 12:19 PM, Jim Symon <[email blocked]> wrote:
   >
   >> ​My first step was to download a year and a half of credit card
   >> transactions and we use our card a lot. Whew!
   >>
   >> The credit card site allowed me to choose how many months would be in the
   >> download file. Do you think it would work to categorize a few months of
   >> what I have, delete the rest, get a new download file for the rest of the
   >> transactions, and import that new file? Would you expect it automatically
   >> to categorize everything in the new import file based on what I had already
   >> categorized? Would the categorization happen when first imported or when I
   >> batch confirm?
   >>
   >> Thanks
   >>
   >>
   >> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 12:03 PM, Sean Reilly <
   >> [email blocked]> wrote:
   >>

   • Edit

7. System closed this discussion on Jun 30, 2017 @ 05:00 PM.