Money Patterns: Bills and Rules

Money patterns is the sub-tab of Budget where your regular payments and the rules that categorize your transactions live together. It shows as Patterns on phones, and it replaces the Scheduled tab and the separate rules list.

Every row in the list is one of three things:

A rule whose payments recur says Looks monthly (or every two weeks, yearly and so on) and offers Expect it, which turns it into a bill without retyping anything.

Reading the list

The header shows what you expect to pay out this month, how much of it is paid, how much is still to come and how many bills are late. Below it the list is grouped by direction:

• Going out: bills and spending rules.
• Coming in: pay and other income. A rule for a paycheck can carry an income source (which job it belongs to), and a scheduled paycheck is shown as Paid when a deposit within a normal range of the expected amount arrives.
• Moving: transfers and contributions, such as “$500 to your TFSA every month”. These read as savings, not spending.

Inside each direction, Expected this month comes first, in due-date order. Then Not due this month (paused, or due in another month, like a yearly bill), then Categorized automatically (rules with no schedule), and last Categorizing paused (rules you paused: they categorize nothing until you resume them).

Paid, Due, Late

A bill is paid by a payment its own rule matches, so a payment still counts when the bank changes its wording. Without a rule, cinder.fi looks for a payment from the same payee. Loan and mortgage bills look at the account the payment came out of, so a transfer to your mortgage counts.

A few details of how status is decided:

• Early payments count. Rent sent on the 30th pays the bill due on the 1st.
• Every due date counts. A bill that repeats every two weeks has two or three due dates in a month, each paid by its own payment.
• A different amount is flagged. If a payment is more than a couple of percent off what you expected, the row shows what was actually paid and offers Update to $X, which changes the bill and its rule together.

Make a rule a bill, or a bill a rule

• Expect it on a rule opens the editor with a schedule already filled in from the payments the rule has matched: how often, the usual amount and the usual day. Save, and the rule is now a bill.
• Stop expecting removes the schedule and keeps the rule, so future payments still file themselves. The category’s budget total stays the same, and the bill’s share moves into your flexible budget. You can undo it.
• Delete on a bill that has a rule asks whether to delete both or keep the rule.
• Won’t file automatically appears on a bill that no rule catches. Turn on File matching payments automatically in its editor to add a rule. If a rule you already have catches the bill’s payments, the row says Filed by “that rule” instead, and opening it links the two. When the ledger shows how your bank printed the payment, the row offers Use the bank’s wording, and the top of the list asks once, one bill at a time: Is “OAKVIEW PROPERTIES” your Rent? Yes opens the bill with that text as its rule (nothing changes until you save); No means the question is not asked again for that wording.

Bills you expect are the fixed part of their category’s budget. What you set in Budget plan is the flexible amount on top of them.

Rules: first match wins

Rules are checked from the top of the list down, and the first one that fits a transaction files it. A rule can match on:

• the payee text (contains, or exact);
• the direction (money out, money in);
• an amount: about a figure, at least, or at most;
• one or more accounts.

It then files the transaction in a category, and can confirm it automatically or leave it for your review. The editor shows the matching past transactions as you type, so you can see what a rule would do before you save it.

When rules overlap

If an earlier rule catches everything a later rule would, the later one says Never applies and names the rule that blocks it. The fix is on the row: Move above “that rule”, or Move to top in its ⋯ menu. The change is one save, and you can undo it.

To see or change the whole order, use Reorder. Moves are held until you press Done, and each new position is read aloud for screen readers.

Apply to past transactions

Apply to past transactions (in a row’s ⋯ menu, or Save & apply in the editor) refiles history to match a rule. It follows the rule order, so it only changes the transactions that rule would win, tells you how many before it starts, and can be undone right afterwards. It includes transactions you have already confirmed, and says so.

Merge overlaps

Before this tab existed, bills and rules were separate lists, so you may have a bill with no rule next to a rule that already files its payments, or the same rule twice. When that is the case, a callout says N overlaps to merge. Review opens a sheet that lists each change with a checkbox, and nothing is written until you apply:

• Link a bill to the rule that already files it. The rule keeps its payee text, and takes the bill’s amount range and account. The sheet tells you when that narrows the rule.
• Remove duplicate rules. Only exact copies are merged: the same payee text, match, direction, category, amount, accounts, destination and income source.
• Give a bill its own rule. Optional, and off by default.

Merging is one change and can be undone from the banner that appears afterwards. Keep separate tells cinder.fi to stop suggesting a merge for a pair you want to keep apart.

The limit

A household can have up to 100 rules. At the limit, New pattern still opens, but only as a bill, and the editor says why it cannot add a rule.

Suggestions

cinder.fi looks through your transactions for regular payments you do not track.

• Find recurring bills shows them as Suggested rows. Expect it accepts one as it is, Edit lets you adjust it first, and dismissing it hides it. Cancelled subscriptions, refunds and vague payees such as “PAYMENT” are left out.
• Accepting a suggestion also adds a rule on the payee text, so later payments file themselves and show as paid.
• Show N dismissed brings dismissed suggestions back, one at a time or all at once. Dismissals follow your account and your household on every device.
• With Pro and AI, cinder.fi tidies the suggestions: it gives them plain names, sets aside payments that are not really bills under Hidden by cinder, and merges duplicates. It never sees your transactions or exact amounts, only redacted payee text and rounded figures.

Suggestions from how you categorize

cinder.fi learns from how you file things too. If you file the same payee in the same category twice within about four months and no rule catches it yet, the cinder asks card on the Spending overview asks whether to make it a rule (the transactions list points you there). Make the rule opens the editor with a rule already filled in. Not now hides it for the session and Don’t suggest remembers your choice (Undo takes it back, and you can restore these under Categorization settings). If you move a payment that a rule filed, the transactions list offers a corrected rule placed above the old one right away, or Change bill when a bill’s own rule filed it.

Rules that move money or file pay

• Link rules file a transfer into a specific investment account that you track by hand, such as a TFSA or a brokerage, and link it as a transfer so it never counts as spending. They appear under Moving.
• Income source. A rule that files pay can carry an income source, so deposits with changing reference text still land on the right job. If you picked a different source for a deposit on the Retirement plan page, the rule says so and offers Use this rule instead.

Calendar and cash flow

• Calendar shows each bill’s due dates and your paydays. Paid, due and late use different shapes as well as colours, and you can step to other months.
• Cash flow sits below the list. It starts from your checking and savings today and walks 60 days forward through your enabled bills, showing the low point and a dated timeline. A bill that is already due or late is taken out on the first day, and a paycheck that has not arrived is never assumed.
• The same view powers the cash floor signal on This month.

Households, currencies and plans

• Households. Everyone in a household sees every bill. A partner’s bill says who added it and shows their account by type, such as “Partner’s Checking”. Reminders go to every member.
• More than one currency. A bill’s amount is in its account’s currency. The header, the Cash flow chart and the cash floor add everything in your plan’s home currency at today’s rate, and say when an amount was left out for want of a rate.
• Reminders. A push reminder arrives a few days before a bill is due. Turn bill reminders and the optional email on or off in notification settings.
• Free and Pro. The list, the editor and rules work on every plan. On the free plan cinder.fi reads only your recent transactions, so a yearly bill or a long-running pattern can be missing from suggestions. Pro reads all the history cinder.fi holds for you.

Where the rest of categorization lives

Categorization settings live in Settings › Plan & budget: the names you send e-transfers to yourself as, the default matching behavior, the suggestions you dismissed, and the AI categorization controls. The end of Money patterns and the Transactions ledger each have a link there. Questions from cinder and the transactions themselves stay on the Transactions sub-tab, where you can also create a rule straight from a transaction: open its drawer and choose Create a rule.

Tips

• Start from Suggested. Accepting what cinder.fi found is faster than typing bills in.
• Prefer “Both”. A bill with a rule shows as paid even when the bank’s wording changes.
• Put specific rules above general ones. A rule for “Amazon Prime” belongs above a rule for “Amazon”.
• Check Never applies. It marks rules that do nothing.
• Use Merge overlaps once. If you tracked bills and rules separately before, one pass tidies them up.

See Budget and Spending Modes for how your budget feeds the retirement projection, and the release notes for what changed and when.