At this point in time Wave does not have any plans on removing this function however I can say that we are working on improving it. Our team has already already been working on some newer iterations of the auto-categorization feature. I apologize if it's not working as you were hoping but we are looking to make improvements.
How can I turn off the Auto-Classify? It's usually wrong, but, if it shows up as classified, I can't easily which ones I have done, and which ones the computer has done (wrong). I'd rather that they all show up as "Choose a Category" until I classify.
Please provide a way to TURN THIS FEATURE OFF!!!
It is not helpful enough to be worth the extra time it takes to dismiss the prompt after checking off each transaction.
PLEASE (please, please) offer a setting to turn it off!!!!
yes! PLEASE ALLOW TO DISABLE! The prompts after EVERY.SINGLE.MANUAL.CATEGORY.change is CAUSING me to make error as I'm trying to click on Reviewed checkmark then in POPS UP IN MY WAY and causes me to click it and making ERRORS! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE IT SO IT CAN BE TURNED OFF IF WE WANT
Agreed - PLEASE give a simple option on the pop-up to click to say "DON'T SHOW THESE EVER AGAIN". That can't be that hard. It is unbelievably annoying and slows down the whole process and causes errors.
We keep on correcting the category but the system keeps on making the same mistake. Like one Item is Salary Ruksana which the system uses for all the salary cheques although the employee has left the service many months ago.
A few minutes ago I corrected the same error and when i checked that transaction again a few minutes later it was back to
Salary Rukhsana which I had just corrected. Whats happening ..please write...Is there a phone number I can talk to someone about this problem!
Virtually every day I need to correct the same categorization issue. I have done this at least 100 times and it continues to be categorized incorrectly. This is frustrating, but the maddening part is having to X out of the box asking if I want to review the other 100 transactions. Please either create a way for users to remove the pop-up or allow users to disable the auto-categorization function. Thanks.
Hey @TFM , if the auto-cat gets the categorization wrong, going in and editing it will actively fix it and it shouldn't revert back. If it is reverting, please make sure that you're clicking save on the transaction screen before clicking out of it. If it's still not saving the categorization, let us know.
(one year using wave and still loving it!!) wanted to take a moment to resurface this discussion ~
Any updates from the wave programming team to disable the "categorize" pop up window? Like many, it becomes overwhelming when you have to manually "X" out of the pop up to continue working and mines appears constantly. I own a construction company and the receipts i have are often from the same big merchants (i.e.- Lowes, Home Depot, McCoy's lumber); however, not all receipts are treated equally. I personally need to separate out (tools, direct materials, indirect materials, etc..) so my categories are often split on 1 invoice. I sincerely ask if your wave team could put this in any 2021-Wave Enhancements.
We don't currently have any updates on removing this feature, however we are currently working on improving our auto-categorization tool for a much smarter and more accurate understanding of your transactions importing.
Thanks so much for your valued feedback in our community.
@CallieP said:
Hi @Just_Lurking , thanks for your message here. As you've discovered, this feature currently only works for bank-imported transactions. This is for back end code reasons, where essentially Wave has been gradually changing from our old accounting platform to our new one, and the CSV uploader is still in the old version. I'm sorry if this wasn't clear prior - thank you for bringing it to our attention. I've updated the Help Centre Article to acknowledge this limitation.
As of right now, it is not on the team's road map as something to build out, but we are currently in the midst of launching our new auto-categorization (back end changes), and so it is very possible that this will be included in future updates - but I can't say for certain at this time. Again, thank you for mentioning this; it has opened some great discussions on our end here and I really appreciate you sharing this post with us!
Hello there, I just wanted to see whether this has been added to the roadmap? Or alternatively whether Plaid has got multifactor authentication to work with BofA so I can cease manually importing statements?
My apologies but we've received no update from the team on whether this is coming anytime soon. Not to say that it is not a possibility, just that we aren't sure that this feature will be added to our banking integration yet.
I need wave to stop categorizing transactions automatically. It causes confusion and is dangerous for my business. There are frequently items that are miscatagorized as another job, or every Lowes purchase which is categorized as "vehicle and fuel". We are contractors and buy from stores like Lowes and Home Depot. These purchases are for different jobs (or categories), and for some reason it has started assigning automatically to them, which is impossible. On several occasions these have slipped through the net, and we haven't picked it up until too late. This means we can under charge or over charge clients for products we have bought.
I found using an adblocker's "block element" feature to block the popup works great for me. I haven't used it long enough to know if this blocks useful popups in other parts of wave, but it seems promising, and you can always turn it off when done categorizing transactions.
I'm using AdGuard for Safari, and had to block two elements on the popup, the window itself, and the arrow.
Here's the user rules I added to block the element:
I'm sorry to hear that. For further clarification, Wave can automatically categorize your transactions based the information contained in its name/description. If Wave categorizes a transaction incorrectly, you can easily re-categorize it with just a few clicks -- Wave will then relearn over time how to categorize payments from this merchant in the future based on your changes.
For example, if Wave sees an expense named "Cafe Shop”, it may automatically categorize it under "Meals & Entertainment". However, if you re-categorize it to "Travel Expense", then Wave will try to categorize related imported transactions as such in the future.
When you re-categorize a transaction, Wave can also detect and gather a list of all currently existing related transactions. Wave will then ask you if you would like to apply your category changes to all of those transactions as well. Confirm that the transactions are categorized correctly and click ‘Categorize’. Wave will then use this updated category when categorizing transactions of this nature in the future.
Whenever I'm going through all my transactions and categorizing them I like to do it one by one. However, it is really annoying when that pop up window is constantly asking me to review similar transactions. For example, some of the things I buy from Amazon are for my business and some are personal - so they'll be categorized differently. I don't want to bulk categorize them. How can I turn it off?
My shipping transactions are always automatically categorized, and it categorization is NEVER correct. I always change it to "Postage" and the Wave system clearly doesn't remember, because it keeps happening.
Hey @IvanMadeThis , I'm afraid we don't have any plans to remove the pop-up in the future but our team is iterating on how we can improve it so that it isn't such a nuisance when you're working. My apologies if it isn't working how you'd like it to!
Hey @tonitii24 , I'm afraid that at the moment the auto-cat feature can't be turned off as the feature was created out of customer demand. I'm sorry if this doesn't work for you but as mentioned above, we are always working on improving it so expect changes in the future.
Is there a way to adjust the category a certain common/recurring transaction is categorized as? Apologies if that question has been answered already. Thanks in advance.
For God's sake please make the pop-up "We found XXX other transactions want to categorize?" a feature I can disable. How is it helpful when 80% of the time I categorize something I get a pop-up asking me if I want to look at other "similar" transactions? Some might, I don't. It requires an extra mouse and click for almost every transaction. So instead of saving me time, it is a huge waste of time. Hands down my least favorite thing about your update about a year ago. Please make it something we can switch off.
I have added numerous categories for recurring expenses but Wave ignores them and continues to categorize them as my monthly dental payment or subscriptions! Is there a limit to how many different transaction descriptions I can use?
Hey @Stacy_H1 , there's no limit to the amount of transaction descriptions you can use. Please keep re-categorizing the transactions which are being miscategorized and the system should eventually pick it up.
I would love the option to disable automatic categorization. For my accounting this is frequently wrong and the time I put in mining for mistakes is more time consuming than if I categorized each one correctly in the first place. Will there ever be the option to disable this feature?
At this time, this isn't something you can toggle on/off in Wave but we appreciate you reaching out about this and bring it to our attention. I suggest reconciling your accounts to kill two birds with one stone. While making sure your books are accurate, you can appropriately categorize your transactions as well.
Please note, Wave uses machine learning to more correctly categorize your transactions. If a transaction is miscategorized and you change it manually, our system will take note of this and try to apply it to new transactions as accurately as possible. The system isn't perfect but will learn over time.
I too would love to disable that d*** pop-up! Should be a setting that the user can use or not use. It is CONSTANTLY offering a bunch of transactions to "review". I don't need it and it pops up right in the middle of the screen! This leads to countless pointless mouse clicks and more repetitive stress injury!
I've been using Wave Apps for a year and it still does not correctly categorize the same recurring transactions. For many of my transactions the software doesn't categorize it at all, even thought I've manually chosen the same category on dozens of previous identical transactions. How can I get Waves to properly and correct categorize recurring transactions correctly?
How do you categorize things that are are credit card payment for business expenses? There will be multiple types of expenses that are included (advertising, accounting fees, etc)
Almost a year later and Wave STILL can't auto categorize my transactions properly? I really don't know the ins and outs and what goes into this, but when the same transaction from the same company gets categorized as "meals and entertainment" and I change it to the correct category, why isn't there a feature that says " would you like all transactions from "XX company" to be categorized as (pick the correct category). May as well just disable the feature as I clearly can't trust wave to auto-categorize it and I have to look at each transaction individually anyway.
Hey @Justneedhelp & @ScorpionCoatingPlus , I'm sorry to hear that the auto-categorization isn't working the way that it's supposed to for you. We typically recommend that you keep re-categorizing to the category that the transaction should be and eventually the autocat system will pick it up on its own. Can you give me specific examples of what it's categorizing to and what it should be categorizing as? I'd love to pass the feedback on to our Product team.
Comments
Hey there @Anonymous_
At this point in time Wave does not have any plans on removing this function however I can say that we are working on improving it. Our team has already already been working on some newer iterations of the auto-categorization feature. I apologize if it's not working as you were hoping but we are looking to make improvements.
How can I turn off the Auto-Classify? It's usually wrong, but, if it shows up as classified, I can't easily which ones I have done, and which ones the computer has done (wrong). I'd rather that they all show up as "Choose a Category" until I classify.
Please provide a way to TURN THIS FEATURE OFF!!!
It is not helpful enough to be worth the extra time it takes to dismiss the prompt after checking off each transaction.
PLEASE (please, please) offer a setting to turn it off!!!!
yes! PLEASE ALLOW TO DISABLE! The prompts after EVERY.SINGLE.MANUAL.CATEGORY.change is CAUSING me to make error as I'm trying to click on Reviewed checkmark then in POPS UP IN MY WAY and causes me to click it and making ERRORS! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE IT SO IT CAN BE TURNED OFF IF WE WANT
Agreed - PLEASE give a simple option on the pop-up to click to say "DON'T SHOW THESE EVER AGAIN". That can't be that hard. It is unbelievably annoying and slows down the whole process and causes errors.
Better yet, make it OPT IN.
We keep on correcting the category but the system keeps on making the same mistake. Like one Item is Salary Ruksana which the system uses for all the salary cheques although the employee has left the service many months ago.
A few minutes ago I corrected the same error and when i checked that transaction again a few minutes later it was back to
Salary Rukhsana which I had just corrected. Whats happening ..please write...Is there a phone number I can talk to someone about this problem!
Virtually every day I need to correct the same categorization issue. I have done this at least 100 times and it continues to be categorized incorrectly. This is frustrating, but the maddening part is having to X out of the box asking if I want to review the other 100 transactions. Please either create a way for users to remove the pop-up or allow users to disable the auto-categorization function. Thanks.
Hey @TFM , if the auto-cat gets the categorization wrong, going in and editing it will actively fix it and it shouldn't revert back. If it is reverting, please make sure that you're clicking save on the transaction screen before clicking out of it. If it's still not saving the categorization, let us know.
Anything income related does not seem to self categorize, no matter how many I do. Is there something I'm missing?
@EmmaP
Happy Sunday Wave Administrators & Community
(one year using wave and still loving it!!) wanted to take a moment to resurface this discussion ~
Any updates from the wave programming team to disable the "categorize" pop up window? Like many, it becomes overwhelming when you have to manually "X" out of the pop up to continue working and mines appears constantly. I own a construction company and the receipts i have are often from the same big merchants (i.e.- Lowes, Home Depot, McCoy's lumber); however, not all receipts are treated equally. I personally need to separate out (tools, direct materials, indirect materials, etc..) so my categories are often split on 1 invoice. I sincerely ask if your wave team could put this in any 2021-Wave Enhancements.
Hey there @Nichole
We don't currently have any updates on removing this feature, however we are currently working on improving our auto-categorization tool for a much smarter and more accurate understanding of your transactions importing.
Thanks so much for your valued feedback in our community.
Hello there, I just wanted to see whether this has been added to the roadmap? Or alternatively whether Plaid has got multifactor authentication to work with BofA so I can cease manually importing statements?
Hi there @Just_Lurking
My apologies but we've received no update from the team on whether this is coming anytime soon. Not to say that it is not a possibility, just that we aren't sure that this feature will be added to our banking integration yet.
I need wave to stop categorizing transactions automatically. It causes confusion and is dangerous for my business. There are frequently items that are miscatagorized as another job, or every Lowes purchase which is categorized as "vehicle and fuel". We are contractors and buy from stores like Lowes and Home Depot. These purchases are for different jobs (or categories), and for some reason it has started assigning automatically to them, which is impossible. On several occasions these have slipped through the net, and we haven't picked it up until too late. This means we can under charge or over charge clients for products we have bought.
I found using an adblocker's "block element" feature to block the popup works great for me. I haven't used it long enough to know if this blocks useful popups in other parts of wave, but it seems promising, and you can always turn it off when done categorizing transactions.
I'm using AdGuard for Safari, and had to block two elements on the popup, the window itself, and the arrow.
Here's the user rules I added to block the element:
You don't have to write any code to do this, I blocked it just by clicking on the popup with my mouse.
Hey @AlexDB !
I'm sorry to hear that. For further clarification, Wave can automatically categorize your transactions based the information contained in its name/description. If Wave categorizes a transaction incorrectly, you can easily re-categorize it with just a few clicks -- Wave will then relearn over time how to categorize payments from this merchant in the future based on your changes.
For example, if Wave sees an expense named "Cafe Shop”, it may automatically categorize it under "Meals & Entertainment". However, if you re-categorize it to "Travel Expense", then Wave will try to categorize related imported transactions as such in the future.
When you re-categorize a transaction, Wave can also detect and gather a list of all currently existing related transactions. Wave will then ask you if you would like to apply your category changes to all of those transactions as well. Confirm that the transactions are categorized correctly and click ‘Categorize’. Wave will then use this updated category when categorizing transactions of this nature in the future.
Whenever I'm going through all my transactions and categorizing them I like to do it one by one. However, it is really annoying when that pop up window is constantly asking me to review similar transactions. For example, some of the things I buy from Amazon are for my business and some are personal - so they'll be categorized differently. I don't want to bulk categorize them. How can I turn it off?
My shipping transactions are always automatically categorized, and it categorization is NEVER correct. I always change it to "Postage" and the Wave system clearly doesn't remember, because it keeps happening.
Hey @IvanMadeThis , I'm afraid we don't have any plans to remove the pop-up in the future but our team is iterating on how we can improve it so that it isn't such a nuisance when you're working. My apologies if it isn't working how you'd like it to!
Hey @tonitii24 , I'm afraid that at the moment the auto-cat feature can't be turned off as the feature was created out of customer demand. I'm sorry if this doesn't work for you but as mentioned above, we are always working on improving it so expect changes in the future.
Is there a way to adjust the category a certain common/recurring transaction is categorized as? Apologies if that question has been answered already. Thanks in advance.
For God's sake please make the pop-up "We found XXX other transactions want to categorize?" a feature I can disable. How is it helpful when 80% of the time I categorize something I get a pop-up asking me if I want to look at other "similar" transactions? Some might, I don't. It requires an extra mouse and click for almost every transaction. So instead of saving me time, it is a huge waste of time. Hands down my least favorite thing about your update about a year ago. Please make it something we can switch off.
I have added numerous categories for recurring expenses but Wave ignores them and continues to categorize them as my monthly dental payment or subscriptions! Is there a limit to how many different transaction descriptions I can use?
Hey @Stacy_H1 , there's no limit to the amount of transaction descriptions you can use. Please keep re-categorizing the transactions which are being miscategorized and the system should eventually pick it up.
I would love the option to disable automatic categorization. For my accounting this is frequently wrong and the time I put in mining for mistakes is more time consuming than if I categorized each one correctly in the first place. Will there ever be the option to disable this feature?
Hey @PeterF !
At this time, this isn't something you can toggle on/off in Wave but we appreciate you reaching out about this and bring it to our attention. I suggest reconciling your accounts to kill two birds with one stone. While making sure your books are accurate, you can appropriately categorize your transactions as well.
Please note, Wave uses machine learning to more correctly categorize your transactions. If a transaction is miscategorized and you change it manually, our system will take note of this and try to apply it to new transactions as accurately as possible. The system isn't perfect but will learn over time.
I too would love to disable that d*** pop-up! Should be a setting that the user can use or not use. It is CONSTANTLY offering a bunch of transactions to "review". I don't need it and it pops up right in the middle of the screen! This leads to countless pointless mouse clicks and more repetitive stress injury!
I've been using Wave Apps for a year and it still does not correctly categorize the same recurring transactions. For many of my transactions the software doesn't categorize it at all, even thought I've manually chosen the same category on dozens of previous identical transactions. How can I get Waves to properly and correct categorize recurring transactions correctly?
How do you categorize things that are are credit card payment for business expenses? There will be multiple types of expenses that are included (advertising, accounting fees, etc)
Almost a year later and Wave STILL can't auto categorize my transactions properly? I really don't know the ins and outs and what goes into this, but when the same transaction from the same company gets categorized as "meals and entertainment" and I change it to the correct category, why isn't there a feature that says " would you like all transactions from "XX company" to be categorized as (pick the correct category). May as well just disable the feature as I clearly can't trust wave to auto-categorize it and I have to look at each transaction individually anyway.
Hey @Justneedhelp & @ScorpionCoatingPlus , I'm sorry to hear that the auto-categorization isn't working the way that it's supposed to for you. We typically recommend that you keep re-categorizing to the category that the transaction should be and eventually the autocat system will pick it up on its own. Can you give me specific examples of what it's categorizing to and what it should be categorizing as? I'd love to pass the feedback on to our Product team.
Hi @TracyLAR , I believe that the steps you're looking for can be found in this Help Center article on transfers and paying off your credit card. If I got it wrong, please feel free to explain further.