How to set up expense rules (and let Mylo learn them for you)

Expense rules are Mylo's "fix it once" tool: if the merchant contains X, apply these updates. They run automatically when an expense is created (on every entry path, from receipt scans to bank imports to manual entry), so the expense lands already cleaned up, categorized, and filed.

You'll find them in Settings → Expense rules.

What a rule can do

Every rule has one condition, Merchant contains …, and one or more actions:

• Merchant: rename it (turn UBER *TRIP HELP.UBER.COM into Uber)
• Category: set the expense category
• Customer/Project: assign a QuickBooks customer (this also marks the expense billable)
• Description: fill in a standard description
• Reimbursable: yes or no
• Billable: yes or no
• Add to a report named …: file it on a report, creating the report if needed (optional toggle)

Leave any action blank and that field is left as is.

Two scopes

• Organisation rules apply to every member's expenses. Only owners and admins can create and edit them.
• Personal rules apply only to your own expenses. Anyone can create their own.

When both match the same expense, org rules apply first and your personal rule overrides: the org sets the default, you keep the final say on your own expenses.

Creating a rule by hand

1. Open Settings → Expense rules and tap New rule.
2. If you're an owner or admin, choose who it applies to: Just me or Whole organisation.
3. Enter the merchant text to match, e.g. Starbucks.
4. Fill in the updates you want applied, and tap Save rule.

From then on, every new expense whose merchant contains that text gets the updates applied automatically at creation.

Letting Mylo learn rules for you

You don't have to write every rule yourself. When an expense for a first-time merchant is approved, Mylo drafts an organisation rule from it:

• The merchant string is generalised: store numbers and card-feed noise are stripped, so STARBUCKS #1234 SEATTLE becomes a rule matching STARBUCKS.
• The rule carries exactly two actions: a clean merchant name (Starbucks) and the category the approver chose.

That's all it learns. Judgment calls (billable, reimbursable, reports) are never auto-learned; those stay with you.

Mylo only learns once per merchant: if any rule (active, suggested, or previously dismissed) already covers that merchant, no new suggestion is created.

Where suggestions appear, and who acts on them

By default a learned rule arrives as a suggestion, not an active rule. It shows up in a Suggested section at the top of the Expense rules page, and it's visible only to the people who can act on it: owners, admins, and a connected accountant (accountants review suggestions per client). Regular members never see it.

A suggestion is inert; nothing applies until it's accepted:

• Accept: the rule becomes active and starts applying to future expenses across the organisation.
• Dismiss: the suggestion disappears, and Mylo remembers the merchant so it's never suggested again.

The auto-activate toggle

If your org would rather skip the review step, an owner or admin can turn on Activate auto-learned expense rules immediately in Organisation settings. With the toggle on, a rule learned from a first-time approval becomes active right away instead of waiting as a suggestion.

The toggle is off by default: out of the box, every learned rule waits for a human to accept it.

How rules apply to future expenses

• Rules run once, when an expense is created; the expense lands already updated. They don't retroactively change expenses that already exist.
• Only active rules apply. Suggestions do nothing until accepted.
• They apply on every entry path: manual entry, receipt scan, text-in, camera-roll import, bank-transaction import, and bulk creation.
• Org rules first, personal rules override when both match.
• A rule's "add to report" action never overrides a report you picked explicitly when creating the expense.
• Rules are best-effort by design: a rule can never block an expense from being created.

Good to know

• Editing and deleting: tap any rule you manage to edit or delete it. Org rules require owner/admin; personal rules are yours.
• Category by name: rules store the category name and resolve it in each creator's category list, so org rules work across the whole team.
• Assigning a customer marks the expense billable, and billable expenses need a customer, so QuickBooks export stays clean.
• Learned rules complement the AI policy. Rules are the deterministic layer; the AI Spending Policy adds LLM-powered judgment on top, checking each expense against your written policy.

For the story of why learned rules exist (and what "your expense policy on autopilot" looks like), read Expense rules that write themselves.