Managing Payees

What Are Payees?

Payees are the "who" of your transactions - merchants, employers, service providers, and anyone else you exchange money with. Every transaction has a payee field identifying where money went or came from.

Clean, consistent payee data makes your budget more readable, enables powerful automation through transaction rules, and helps the app remember your preferred categories for each payee.

Payee Auto-Complete

When you start typing a payee name in the transaction form, Purpose Budget suggests matching payees from your history. This makes data entry faster and keeps naming consistent.

• Suggestions are based on payees you've used before in the current space
• Selecting from suggestions ensures consistent naming across transactions
• Consistent names make transaction rules and reports more accurate
• You can always type a new payee name if it's a first-time merchant

Payee + Category Memory

Purpose Budget remembers the last category you used for each payee. The next time you enter a transaction from the same payee, the category is automatically pre-filled.

• The category is pre-filled based on your most recent transaction with that payee
• This saves time and improves consistency across your budget
• You can always change the suggested category if this particular transaction is different
• The memory updates each time you use a new category for that payee

Rename Rules

Bank-imported payees often have messy names like "AMAZON.COM*3K2JF8" or "SQ *COFFEE SHOP #42". Rename rules automatically clean these up to readable names so your transaction list stays tidy.

Creating a Rename Rule

1. Go to Settings > Payees (or right-click a transaction)
2. Enter the pattern to match (the messy bank name)
3. Enter the clean name you want to display
4. Choose match type: "contains" (partial match) or "exact match"
5. Save the rule

How Rules Apply

• Rules apply automatically to new imported transactions
• Existing transactions are not retroactively renamed
• Multiple rules can exist - they're processed in order
• If no rule matches, the original bank payee name is kept

Merging Duplicate Payees

Over time you may end up with variations of the same payee: "Starbucks", "STARBUCKS", "Starbucks Coffee". Merging combines these into a single payee for cleaner data.

• All transactions from merged payees are updated to the chosen name
• Category memory and transaction rules apply to the merged name going forward
• Your transaction history stays intact - only the payee name changes
• This is especially useful after importing transactions from multiple bank connections

Creating Rules from Transactions

The fastest way to set up rules is directly from a transaction. When you see a messy payee name in your transaction list, you can create a rename rule or categorization rule right from the transaction detail view.

• See a messy name, clean it up right away
• The rule applies to all future transactions with similar payee names
• Combine with transaction rules for fully automated categorization

Best Practices

• Set up rename rules early: Especially if using bank sync - messy names will keep coming in
• Use simple, recognizable names: "Amazon" not "Amazon.com Inc."
• Be consistent with naming: Always "Walmart" not sometimes "Wal-Mart"
• Review your payee list periodically: Merge duplicates to keep data clean
• Combine rename rules with transaction rules: Clean names first, then auto-categorize for a fully automated import workflow