Rules Engine

The Rules Engine automatically sets transaction fields based on conditions you define. Rules run when:

• A transaction is created manually (unless the transaction has Ignore Rules enabled)
• Transactions are imported via CSV (unless the transaction has Ignore Rules enabled)
• You manually trigger a rule (or all rules) from the Rules page

Note: If a transaction has the Ignore Rules toggle enabled, the rules engine skips it entirely — even if conditions match. This can be set per-transaction from the transaction form, or applied to multiple transactions at once via Bulk Edit.

Structure

Rules are organised into Rule Groups (for your own organisation — e.g. "Groceries", "Bills", "Income"). Within each group, you can have multiple Rules.

Each Rule has:

• Conditions — criteria that must match for the rule to fire
• Condition logic — AND (all conditions must match) or OR (any condition can match)
• Actions — what to set when the rule fires

Conditions

Field	Available Operators
Payee	contains, equals, starts with, ends with
Description	contains, equals, starts with, ends with
Amount	equals, greater than, less than, between
Account	equals
Date	equals, before, after, between
Category	equals

Conditions are case-insensitive for text fields.

Actions

Field	Description
Payee	Set or normalise the payee name
Description	Set or override the description
Category	Assign the transaction to a budget category
Amount	Override the transaction amount
Account	Reassign to a different account
Date	Override the date

The most common action is setting the Category — this is what makes rules useful for auto-categorisation during import.

Rule actions always override existing field values. If a transaction already has a category set, a matching rule will still replace it. To prevent a rule from applying to a specific transaction, use the Ignore Rules toggle on that transaction.

Condition Logic

• AND — All conditions must be true for the rule to fire. Use this for precise matching (e.g. payee = "Woolworths" AND amount > $50).
• OR — Any condition being true triggers the rule. Use this to consolidate variations (e.g. payee contains "Coles" OR payee contains "Woolworths" → Groceries).

Creating a Rule

1. Go to Rules in the sidebar
2. Create a Rule Group if needed, or select an existing one
3. Click + Rule inside the group
4. Give the rule a name (e.g. "Woolworths → Groceries")
5. Add one or more conditions
6. Choose AND or OR logic
7. Add one or more actions
8. Save

Running Rules

On a single rule: Click the run button next to a rule to apply it to all existing transactions.

All rules at once: Click Run All Rules to apply every enabled rule to your entire transaction history.

This is useful after adding new rules — run them once to backfill existing transactions.

Enabling / Disabling

Each rule has an enable/disable toggle. Disabled rules are skipped during automatic processing but can still be run manually.

Rule Order

Within a rule group, rules are applied in order. If multiple rules match a transaction, all of them fire — later rules may overwrite actions set by earlier ones.

Conflict Detection

Dosh warns you when two rules have overlapping conditions and conflicting actions (e.g. two rules that both match "Payee = Coles" but assign different categories). Resolve conflicts by refining conditions or disabling one of the rules.