Stessa's auto-categorization feature works reasonably well, but some transactions inevitably don't have enough descriptive content to be auto-categorized properly. If you have a lot of uncategorized income and expenses to sift through or a similar edit to make across many entries, you'll want to use Stessa's bulk editing features rather than a one-by-one approach.
How do I activate bulk edit?
Select all the transactions that need an edit using the check box to the left of the transactions. Once the transactions are selected the edit option will appear at the bottom of the page.
After clicking the edit option a fly-out modal will appear to the right of the page. This will allow you to edit the bulk data. Once the changes are made click save and all selected transactions will be updated.
Search & Filter, Then Select & Edit
Let's say you have a mortgage payment that goes out monthly. It's always the same amount: $917.52, but your bank doesn't provide a description of the transaction, so Stessa doesn't know to categorize it automatically. You can quickly clean up all instances of this expense at once with the following approach:
• Visit your Transactions page
• Use the "All Amounts" filter
• Set the Minimum and Maximum to "917.52"
• Check the checkbox in the header row (left of the "Date" column header)
• Click the "Edit" button (below "Reports") in the upper right corner of the screen
• Change the Category to "Mortgages & Loans > Mortgage Payments"
• Click "Save" to update all transactions at once
You can use this same approach to update payer/payee names, dates, categories, and even notes across as many as 50 transactions at once. When used properly, Stessa's bulk editing features can save you a ton of time and hassle.
That said, you can also get yourself into trouble fairly quickly and corrupt a lot of data in a very short amount of time. There's no "undo" or "back" button for bulk edits, so proceed carefully and be sure of the changes you're looking to make before clicking "Save."
Still Having Trouble Cleaning Up Your Transactions?
If you're not able to get Stessa's bulk editing features working for you, or you have suggestions as to how we could make managing transactions even easier, let us know. Use the blue circle at lower right to send us a message.