Merchant Cleanup and Recognition

Source Profiles use two complementary tools for payees: merchant cleanup turns a raw bank description into a consistent cleaned merchant, and recognition rules connect that cleaned merchant to one of your saved payees.

Start with the bank description #

In Import Center, edit the Source Profile in its side panel and map its payee or description column. Common Cents applies conservative cleanup automatically. Load sample data to open the expanded editor workspace, where the sample rows and profile fields appear alongside each other.

Use Customize merchant cleanup only for a demonstrated source-specific problem. It opens a child side panel where you can add ordered steps to remove a prefix or suffix, keep text around markers, split text, or replace text. Check the sample rows before saving a new profile revision.

Recognize a saved payee #

Choose Edit Payee Recognition Rules on an existing profile to see its saved rules in a separate side panel. Choose Add Recognition Rule to open a child panel for the payee, matching rule, cleaned-merchant text, and scope. Use a rule’s Edit button to change it in that same child-panel flow.

You can also open a payee’s detail page and choose Manage Rules in Import Recognition Rules. That view shows every rule that resolves to the payee—both global rules and rules tied to individual Source Profiles—and lets you add or edit them without first locating the profile.

• Use an exact rule when the cleaned merchant is stable.
• Use cleaned merchant contains text for a stable portion of a changing description, such as an order code.
• Scope the rule to this Source Profile unless the same cleaned merchant should mean the same payee across all profiles.

Use the representative-export preview to confirm how the bank descriptions are cleaned before creating a rule. Prefer narrow rules: a conflicting or overly broad rule makes the group return to review during import.

When two contains-text rules at the same precedence match different payees, Import Review identifies the conflicting payees and asks you to choose. Saving that choice creates a narrow exact rule, which takes precedence over the conflicting broader rules. Review or refine those broader rules later from the Source Profile or Payee page.

When several exact rules for one payee share a useful prefix, Import Review can offer a saved, dismissible suggestion for one broader contains-text rule. Accepting it never removes the exact rules; it simply covers future variations. Dismissed suggestions stay dismissed, and Common Cents never creates a broader rule automatically.

Deleting a recognition rule removes it permanently, but the normal Undo command can restore it immediately if needed.

Resolve new merchants during an import #

The Transaction Import Workspace groups unresolved cleaned merchants and shows representative bank descriptions. Choose the correct payee to save an exact recognition for future imports, or skip the group to leave its cleaned merchant as editable text in Bulk Entry.

Recognition is always explicit. Common Cents does not silently create a reusable payee rule from an imported name.