Is my transaction matching working?

[John Ralls]

> On Dec 8, 2015, at 5:29 AM, jmk <jmk at cmail.nu> wrote:
> 
> I just wanted to make sure that the Bayesian matching part of GnuCash is
> actually working the way it is supposed to for me. After I download
> transactions from my bank the description field contains exactly as it
> was downloaded for every transaction. I have to visit each one and
> correct the description field, hit tab, and then the matching will try
> to fill out the rest according to my past history. Is this intentional?
> Isf there was a way to enable the description field to automatically
> match and change to how you have corrected it in past sessions?. I have
> a script to do this, but it isn't perfect and I don't want to spend too
> much time on it if there is a way to do it within the program.

The Bayesian matcher doesn’t change descriptions. It only tokenizes them and then compares the tokens with previous account selections to score candidate accounts, adds up the scores, and assigns the transaction to the highest-scoring account. The results are presented for your review in the matcher window. If you change a match it will add 1 to the score for the account you selected on each token in the description, so that’s how you train it. When you select OK in the match window it adds the transactions to the matched accounts (having already added them to the import account).

What you’re describing is the autocomplete function in the register: When you edit the description it looks back over previous entries for an exact match with what you’ve typed and will offer the remainder of the last matching description; if you tab out *and haven’t entered the transfer account and credit/debit fields* it will also fill those in for you with the values from that previous transaction, but it won’t change what you’ve already entered.

Regards,
John Ralls