A rule tells Summ to categorize transactions for you whenever they match conditions you choose — not just the transactions you have today, but everything that arrives in future imports and syncs. If you find yourself giving the same category to the same kind of transaction over and over, a rule does it once and keeps doing it.
Rules are available on the Trader plan and above, including Business. On lower plans the Rules page is not shown.
This article covers rules that set a transaction's category. If you have accounting software such as Xero or QuickBooks connected, rules can also map your chart of accounts — that is covered separately.
Where to find it
Open the Rules page from the main navigation. Each rule is a row showing its Name, its conditions under IF, and what it does under THEN.
Creating a rule
On the Rules page, click Add Rule.
Under IF, click Add condition and choose what the rule should match on — for example From, To, Account, Tx Currency, Blockchain, NFT Collection or Tx Value. You can add several conditions and combine them with and / or.
Under THEN, choose the category you want applied.
Check the line reading This rule will apply to N transactions, and click View to see exactly which ones. This is your safety check — a rule with conditions that are too broad will recategorize far more than you intended, and that is not something you can undo in one step.
Give the rule a name that describes what it does, then click Save.
You can also create rules without leaving what you are doing: on the Transactions page, when you categorize a transaction, choose the option to apply your choice to future transactions, and Summ builds a matching rule for you. Rules can also be created from a specific wallet or exchange on the Accounts page, from the Address Book, or by asking an AI assistant connected to your account.
When rules run
Summ applies your rules in the background. It starts as soon as you save a rule, and again after every import or sync — you do not need to open your reports or press anything to set it off.
Working through your transactions takes a moment, so the new categories appear shortly after you save rather than the instant you hit Save. On a large account it can take longer.
How rules work together
Rules run from top to bottom. Row 1 runs first. You can reorder them by dragging a rule up or down, or using Move to top / Move to bottom from its menu. New rules are added at the bottom, so they have the lowest priority until you move them.
The first matching rule wins. Once a rule has set a transaction's category, rules further down the list are skipped for that transaction, even if their conditions also match. So where two rules overlap, put the more specific one higher.
A rule categorizes a transaction once. Summ records which rule categorized each transaction, and rules do not revisit it later. There is currently no way to send transactions back to being uncategorized, so if a rule has categorized something you did not intend, change those transactions yourself — bulk edit is the quickest way.
Editing, disabling and deleting
None of these three change the categories a rule has already applied. They change what the rule does from now on. Open a rule's menu from its row to reach them.
Edit — change the rule's conditions or category. This affects how it categorizes transactions from then on. Transactions it has already categorized keep the category they were given.
Disable — the rule stops applying to new transactions, but it is kept, along with the record of what it has already done, in case you want to enable it again. Re-enabling changes its position in the list, so check the order afterwards.
Delete — removes the rule. The transactions it categorized keep their categories.
What a rule can do
Set a category for every transaction matching your conditions, now and in future.
Mark transactions as spam, by choosing a spam category. Spam is directional, so one rule cannot cover both: you need one rule for incoming and another for outgoing.
Rules cannot add tags, and cannot select every transaction — a rule must narrow to some subset of your data before it can be saved.
Rules and backups
Your rules are not included in a backup. A backup captures your transactions, your connected accounts and their sync history, and your address book — so restoring one brings your data back, but any rules you deleted in the meantime will not return, and you would need to recreate them.
Because a restore replaces your transactions, it is worth reviewing your Rules page afterwards: your existing rules will categorize the restored transactions once the restore finishes.
Rules or bulk edit?
Use a rule when the intent is ongoing — "always treat transfers to this address as a contractor payment". Use bulk edit for a one-off tidy-up of transactions you already have: it applies straight away, does not keep running, and is the tool for changing a category a rule has already set. Bulk edit is also available on every plan.
Frequently asked questions
I saved a rule but nothing changed. Why?
Rules are applied in the background rather than the moment you save, so give it a little time to work through your transactions. If the categories still have not changed, the usual reason is that those transactions had already been categorized by a rule higher up the list, which means the new rule is skipped for them.
Can I undo what a rule did?
Not in one step. Editing, disabling or deleting the rule does not revert the categories it applied, and transactions cannot be sent back to being uncategorized. To change them, select the affected transactions and use bulk edit.
Will a rule overwrite a category I set by hand?
No. A category you have set yourself is not replaced by a rule later on.
If I restore a backup, do my rules come back?
No — rules are not part of a backup. Restoring brings back your transactions, accounts and address book, but not your rules.
How many conditions can one rule have?
As many as you need, combined with and / or. A rule name can be up to 280 characters.
Can my accountant's plan give me rules?
No — entitlement follows the account the rule is written to. For an accountant-managed client, it is the client's plan that needs to be Trader or above, not the accountant's own seat.
Can an AI assistant create rules for me?
Yes, if you have connected one to your Summ account. It will ask you to confirm before creating anything, and it is instructed to show you how many existing transactions a rule would match first. See connecting an AI assistant to Summ.
Good to know
Check the match count before saving. The This rule will apply to N transactions line and its View button are the quickest way to catch conditions that are broader than you meant — and the cheapest, because a rule's work is not undone in one step.
Order matters most where rules overlap. If two rules could apply to the same transaction, put the more specific one higher.
If you have any questions, reach out to our Support Team via the in-app chat. 😇