Teach It

Teach It is for the moments when choosing a source column is not enough.

It lives inside the import mapping editor and helps Common Cents learn how one source column should turn into the value you actually want in a target field.

What Teach It is trying to do #

It helps Common Cents learn how your source file expresses dates, amounts, payees, notes, or other values so later imports from the same source need less manual correction.

Teach It is especially useful when a source column contains extra text you do not want to keep as-is. A common example is a bank description column that needs to become a cleaner payee name.

Start after you pick a target field #

In the mapping editor, Teach It appears for a source column after you choose a Target Field.

From there, you can load example rows, teach the rule from actual source data, preview the results, and keep refining the rule until the output is stable.

Add sample data when you want guided training #

Teach It works best when you load example rows with Add Sample Data.

That sample data can be CSV or tab-delimited text. Common Cents uses it for:

• guided rule training
• previewing real outputs
• checking how broadly a rule matches the sample rows

The sample data is for the editor session. It is there to help you teach and preview the rule, not to save those example rows as real transactions.

Start with the primary extract rule #

The main Teach It flow starts with a reusable extract rule.

For each example row, you give Common Cents the Expected Result for the value you want. Teach It compares that with the current result and learns what should be removed or kept.

This is the best fit when the source follows a pattern, such as:

• stripping a constant prefix from payee text
• pulling the useful portion out of a bank description
• keeping a repeated code or memo fragment out of the final value

Use contains overrides for exceptions #

After the primary rule has enough training examples, Teach It can add contains overrides for special cases.

These are for exceptions and outliers, not the main pattern.

With a contains override, you tell Common Cents:

• which text to look for
• what fixed output to use when that text appears

That is useful for cases where a few known source values should always become one specific output.

Preview uses the real rule order #

The preview table shows how the current rules behave on sample rows before you save the mapping.

That preview uses the same rule order the mapping will use later:

1. contains overrides first
2. the primary extract rule next
3. fallback behavior last, which keeps the original text when nothing else matches

That makes preview the best place to catch overly broad rules before they affect a real import.

You can still edit the regex directly #

Teach It is not locked to the guided flow.

If you need tighter control, the mapping editor also lets you edit the primary extract regex directly and switch back to the taught version later.

Keep expectations realistic #

Teach It should make repeated imports easier. It is not a promise that every messy file will become perfect automatically.

Use Teach It when the same cleanup problem keeps coming back. If a source file is truly inconsistent, it is still normal to review and correct the sheet before saving.