Rules

If you keep editing the same kind of transaction the same way, write it as a rule once. After that the system handles it for you.

Done through your assistant. This isn’t something you set up inside the Wise Pennyapp yet — you ask your connected AI assistant to do it for you. The app shows the result (for example, an “Edited” or “Split” mark on a transaction); the examples below show what to ask.

Rules live in Wise Penny, not in your AI

A rule watches every new transaction that syncs from your bank and applies a set of changes to anything that matches its conditions. It can set a category, rename the merchant, add tags, or any combination. Once saved, it runs silently — you don't watch it, and you don't have to remember to trigger it.

Rules live in Wise Penny, not in your AI assistant. Your assistant helps you write them, but once a rule is saved it runs server-side on every sync. Switch assistants, stop using AI for a month, or come back six months later — your rules keep firing.

A typical example: every charge from your gym (which the bank might describe as EQNX MEMBERSHIP NYC) should be categorized as Fitness, renamed to Equinox, and tagged subscription. Write that once. Every future charge from there gets all three changes applied.

A rule: condition + action

The condition picks which transactions match. The action says what to do to them. No code, no formulas.

One rule, three actions. The bank's cryptic EQNX MEMBERSHIP NYC becomes a clean Equinox charge, categorized and tagged.

Conditions can match on:

Merchant name or description — equals, contains, or starts with a word or phrase.
Amount— greater than, less than, between a range, or simply “is an expense” or “is income”.
Account — only transactions on a specific card or bank account.
Date of month — useful for bills that always post in the first week of the month.
Category — match on what the bank already assigned.

A rule can require all conditions to match (AND) or any one of them (OR). Up to five conditions per rule. No regular expressions — plain text matching only.

Actions can:

Set a category — any category from the default taxonomy or your custom ones.
Rename the merchant — replace the bank's cryptic label with something readable.
Add tags — one or more tags from your tag library.

Rules never overwrite manual edits

Say a rule sets every charge from your local coffee shop to “Coffee”, and one day you explicitly recategorize a $40 charge from there as “Gift” because you bought beans for a friend. The rule will not touch that transaction. It sees your deliberate choice and steps aside. Every other charge still gets “Coffee” — only that one exception is left alone.

Tags work slightly differently: rules add tags on top of whatever tags already exist. They don't remove tags you set, and multiple rules can each contribute their own tags to the same transaction.

Applying a rule to your history

When you create a rule, it applies going forward. But you likely have months of past transactions that would match. Ask your assistant to apply the rule retroactively — it will show you a preview (how many transactions match, a sample of what they are) before changing anything. You confirm, then it runs.

The same preview-then-confirm flow works for applying a rule to any subset you describe.

Deleting a rule (keep history, or undo it)

When you no longer want a rule, you have a choice about what happens to the changes it already made.

Delete and keep the history — the rule is gone, but every category, tag, or merchant name it set stays in place. Past transactions keep the changes; the rule just won't fire on new ones.
Delete and undo everything — the rule is gone and every change it ever applied is rolled back. Transactions return to what the bank originally said, unless you or your assistant separately edited them.

Your assistant will ask which you want before deleting.

Practical guidance for living with rules

Most people have a handful of rules, not dozens. Start with the two or three patterns you keep correcting by hand, and add more as the need becomes obvious.
Rules fire on new transactions, not on edits. If you update a rule, it won't re-fire on past transactions automatically — ask your assistant to run an apply pass if you want that.
Rules can be reordered. When multiple rules match the same transaction, the one with the highest priority wins on any field where they conflict. Tags from all matching rules are combined. Ask your assistant to adjust order if you want one rule to take precedence over another.
No coding required. Describe the pattern in plain language — your assistant translates it into a rule.

Ask your assistant: “Every charge starting with “EQNX” is my gym membership — categorize it as Fitness, rename it to Equinox, and tag it “subscription”.”