Rules & Triggers Guide

Rules help Auto Expense Tracker classify payment messages consistently. Triggers help you watch spending limits.

Include Rules

Include rules match words in a sender, merchant title, or SMS body and move matching transactions into a category. If an include rule conflicts with an exclude rule, the app removes the overlapping exclude rule so future matching messages stay included. When deleting a category rule, users can delete only the future rule or also revert rule-matched transactions back to Unknown.

Changing One Transaction

When correcting a transaction category, choose Change Only to update just that transaction and quietly improve local Smart Categorization. Choose Change + Rule when matching saved transactions and future matching SMS should use the same category. Use Cancel to leave the transaction unchanged.

Change Only

Change Only is best for one-off purchases or uncertain merchant names. It does not create a permanent category rule.

Split Transactions

Some payments contain more than one spending category, such as groceries and dining paid together. Split transaction first asks how many categories are needed, then lets users divide one payment by amount or percentage. Splits are manual only, do not create rules, and do not teach Smart Categorization.

Change + Rule

Change + Rule applies to the selected transaction, matching saved transactions, and future matching SMS. Before creating the rule, the app previews the rule text and how many saved transactions will be affected. Use it for clear repeated merchant names, not broad generic titles such as IBAN, POS, CARD, or Transfer.

Personal Learning

Change Only can save a small local learning pattern on the device so similar future messages are categorized better. Learned patterns stay local, are visible in Settings, and can be deleted by the user.

Offline Category Signals

The app includes a local set of merchant and payment category signals across shopping, groceries, dining, transport, bills, transfer, recharge, lifestyle, health, travel, education, and entertainment. These signals are stored inside the app and do not require uploading SMS data.

Personal learning is checked before built-in category signals. This means a correction on your device can override the app's general offline signals without sending your SMS data anywhere.

Automation Level

Settings includes Relaxed, Balanced, and Strict Smart Categorization levels. Balanced is the recommended default and keeps the normal confidence threshold for everyone. Premium unlocks Relaxed, which categorizes more messages and may need more review, and Strict, which sends more uncertain messages to Unknown. When the level changes, the app shows loading feedback while existing automatic categorizations are rechecked.

Exclude Rules

Exclude rules hide matching transactions from totals and reports. Excluded transactions are still saved in the Excluded tab, where you can include them again if needed.

Promo Filtering

The app may automatically exclude obvious promotional messages that contain amounts, such as prize, subscribe, deal, voucher, or offer messages. These messages are not deleted; they remain available in the Excluded tab for review.

Examples of built-in promo filter words include subscribe, win, prize, offer, discount, voucher, reply, click, and website links. Real payment messages with words such as paid, debit, purchase, charged, or deducted are treated as expenses instead of promotions.

Premium users can add custom promo words or phrases. Matching messages are saved in Excluded for review instead of being deleted.

Amount Rules

Amount rules apply only to transactions that are still Unknown. For example, you can move unknown transactions less than or equal to a chosen amount into a selected category. Amount rules do not override include or exclude text rules.

Budget Triggers

Budget triggers watch a category against a daily, weekly, or monthly limit. They are designed as local reminders inside the app and do not upload your spending data.

Home-Screen Widget

The Android home-screen widget shows only Today and This Month totals. It does not show SMS text or merchant names.

App Updates

When installed from Google Play, the app may check for newer versions and show a flexible Play Store update prompt. Updates are delivered by Google Play. If a user declines an optional update, the app respects that choice for the current app session.

Date Filters

The dashboard, Reports, and Excluded tab support all, today, yesterday, last week, and selected month filters. During import, the app reads up to one year of SMS messages.

Reports

Reports place Monthly Category Expense near the top, followed by weekly and monthly comparison cards. Weekly compares Current with Last Week. Monthly compares Current with Last Month. Top Merchants follows the selected date filter.