Why aren't my QuickBooks Online bank rules applying to transactions I already categorized?

Bank rules in QuickBooks Online only apply to transactions sitting in your For review tab. They don't reach back and re-apply to transactions you've already categorized and accepted into your books. That's why the rules you created after categorizing those 40 transactions didn't do anything to them.

Here's how rules work going forward:

1. Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Rules.
2. Select New rule and name it.
3. Choose whether it applies to Money in or Money out, and which bank or credit card account.
4. Set up to 5 conditions based on Description, Bank text, or Amount, using Contains, Doesn't contain, or Is exactly.
5. Choose the Transaction type, Category, Tags, and Payee the rule should apply.
6. Select Save.

New transactions that land in For review going forward will be matched against your rules automatically.

If you set up new rules and they still aren't matching anything, the most common cause is a mismatch between Description and Bank text:

• Bank text is the exact wording your bank sends over, the same thing you'd see on a bank statement.
• Description is QuickBooks' simplified version, often just the vendor name.

QuickBooks shows Description by default. If your rule conditions were written against the full bank text but you're only seeing the shortened description (or vice versa), the rule won't fire. To check which one you're matching against, go to Bank transactions, select the Settings gear, and choose Show full bank description to compare.

A quick way to build a rule correctly the first time: select a transaction in For review and use the Create a rule link directly from that transaction, so the conditions are pre-filled from the real data.

On the transactions you already categorized: there's no built-in way in QuickBooks Online to apply a rule retroactively to transactions you've already accepted. If you want those 40 recategorized to match your new rules, you'd need to edit them individually or in a batch from the account register.

If you've double checked your rule conditions against the bank text and description and you're still not seeing matches, reply here with one of the transactions that should have matched. We can go through the specific condition with you and figure out what's off.

Helpful resources:

• Set up bank rules to categorize online banking transactions in QuickBooks Online
• Categorize online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online