Manage Payees

The Payees workspace is where you manage canonical payee names across the app.

What the workspace shows #

The workspace is a searchable, filterable grid. Depending on the payee and your enabled features, it can show:

• the payee name
• the default category, if one is set
• alias count
• total amount tied to that payee
• transaction count
• last used date

Select a payee row, or choose View Details from its related-actions menu, to open the payee detail page.

Search, filter, and sort #

You can search by payee name and, when available, by alias name.

The workspace also lets you filter for payees that:

• have a default category
• have aliases
• are currently unused

Select a column heading to sort by that column. You can sort by payee, default category, alias count, total amount, transaction count, or last used date.

Add and edit payees #

Use Add Payee to create a new canonical payee.

When you add or edit a payee, the main fields are:

• Payee Name
• Default Category (Optional)

That default category can be used automatically for transactions with that payee.

Delete payees #

To delete a payee, open the payee with Edit Payee and use Delete Payee.

Deletion is available only when the payee has 0 transactions. If the payee has transaction history, Common Cents keeps it so old transactions, reports, and payee history do not lose their meaning.

If you no longer want a payee as a separate name but it already has history, use Merge Payees instead. Merging moves the history to another canonical payee rather than deleting it.

Source Profile recognition #

Teach recurring bank descriptions through Payee recognition rules in the Source Profile that owns the export. A rule can be exact or contain text, and can apply to one Source Profile or all of them. See Merchant Cleanup and Recognition.

Important behavior:

• existing aliases remain available on the payee when the feature is enabled
• recognition rules are managed from Import Center, not from the payee editor
• Common Cents never creates a reusable Source Profile recognition silently; you save it explicitly while resolving a merchant group or editing the profile

Row actions #

Each payee row has related actions for:

• Edit Payee
• View Details
• Merge Into Another Payee

Payee detail page #

The detail page gives a fuller view of one payee. Its summary includes the default category, transaction count, total net amount, first and last use dates, and imported-alias count.

Below the summary, Common Cents shows up to the last 12 months of inflow and outflow activity. Select a chart value to inspect the transactions behind it. When a payee spans more than one category or account, the page also shows category and account breakdowns; select a net amount there for a drilldown. The Transactions section at the bottom is already filtered to that payee and can be exported.

When to use this workspace #

Use the Payees workspace when you need to manage payee names themselves.

If the problem is that you have duplicate payees and want one canonical record to keep the combined history, use Merge Payees.