Recurring Bills and Rules
A recurring rule describes one bill: what it looks like, how often it comes and what it costs. Rules are how UnderBudget knows which bills are still to come this month, so they shape your budget bars, your pace and the everyday-spending chart. The more of your bills have a rule, the more those numbers can be trusted.
Every recurring charge has a rule
Mark the categories (or subcategories) your bills live in as recurring. From then on, every charge in them should be linked to a rule. When one isn't, it waits under Rules → Recurring → Needs a rule, and the Rules menu item shows a count until it's dealt with: give it a rule, link it to an existing one, or move it out if it isn't a bill.
Set up a rule
- 1
Mark your bill categories as recurring
Edit your budget and tap the repeat icon next to a category like Subscriptions, or on just a subcategory, like Household → Utilities. When you save, existing charges that fit a rule are linked to it, and you're walked through a pre-filled rule for each of the rest, one bill at a time (charges with the same description are grouped). Skip one and it waits under Needs a rule.
- 2
Start a rule
Any of these opens the same rule form, pre-filled where it can be:
- Review next to a charge under Needs a rule (Rules → Recurring).
- The prompt that opens after you save or import a charge in a recurring category that no rule fits.
- Create Rule on a transaction the review queue flags as possibly recurring.
- New Recurring Rule on the Recurring tab, to start from scratch.
- Suggest rules above Needs a rule: AI groups the last 3 months of charges that need a rule and drafts one per bill. Amounts and dates are worked out from the charges. Tick the ones you want, or Edit one first; nothing is saved until you click Create.
The top of the form shows its Latest match: the newest saved transaction the rule, as you've filled it in, would catch. It updates as you edit, so you can see straight away whether it still catches the charge you meant.
- 3
Describe the charge
Description is text from the bank's description, like netflix. Leave Match on Contains, or use Exact match for the whole description. Category and Subcategory are where its charges go; a rule with a subcategory only catches charges in that subcategory.
Rename description to shows a cleaner name, like Netflix instead of NETFLIX.COM 866-579. The bank's original description is always kept, and rules match against it.
- 4
Set the amount range
Min amount and Max amount are the charge's size, without a minus sign. A rule made from a charge starts about 5% either side of it. The range is what separates two bills from the same payee (two subscriptions from the same company, say). Leave both blank and the rule catches a charge of any size; the form warns you when you do.
- 5
Set how often it comes, and when
Frequency is weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or every X weeks, months or years. The date window around it allows for bills that move a little:
- Weekly rules have a range of weekdays. A rule made from a charge starts a day either side of its weekday.
- Monthly rules have a range of days of the month, like the 1st to the 5th for a bill that usually comes on the 3rd.
- Yearly rules have a range of dates, like Jan 1 to Jan 13. Impossible dates (Feb 30) are refused.
A charge date is any date the bill was or will be charged. It tells an every-2-weeks or quarterly rule which weeks or months it falls in, so it's required for those, and lets a new rule be expected before its first charge is linked. A rule made from a charge uses that charge's date.
Date adjustment is for a bill that posts a few days into the month but belongs to the month before: Move to last day of previous month shifts its date on import.
- 6
Choose the expected cost
Expected cost is what the bill counts as in bills to come before it's charged.
- Auto (the default) uses the average of its last 3 charges. The form shows that average as you fill it in. Refunds and charges you've moved to another category don't count. With no charges yet, it uses the middle of the amount range.
- Fixed pins an amount, for a price you know or a bill too new to average.
- 7
Save it, and check what it caught
Saving links the charge you started from, plus every other saved charge the rule fits. A charge linked to a rule takes the rule's category and, unless you've renamed it yourself, its name. From then on, matching transactions in the review queue are filled in for you.
On Rules → Recurring each rule is a tile with its name, Expected cost (marked fixed when pinned) and Next expected date, marked late once its date window has passed. Tap it for the rest, including the transactions it caught. Unlink any it caught by mistake.
Clear Needs a rule
Each line is a charge (or a group with the same description) in a recurring category with no rule. The Rules menu item shows how many are waiting.
- Review opens a rule made from the charge, to check and save.
- Link to a rule puts it on a rule you already have, and offers to widen that rule's amount range.
- Not recurring moves a one-off to a category that isn't recurring.
- Link matches (at the top) links every charge that already fits one of your rules.
Deleting a recurring rule asks where its linked charges should go: to another rule, or back to Needs a rule.
Common situations
The price went up
The new charge lands in Needs a rule because it's outside the rule's amount range. Click Link to a rule, pick the existing rule, and keep Widen its amount range ticked so the next charge at the new price matches on its own. No duplicate rule needed.
A bill that's different every month
Utilities and phone bills move around. Give the rule a wide amount range (or leave Max blank) and keep Expected cost on Auto, so bills to come use the average of the last 3 charges. The review queue flags a charge as possibly recurring when it's within about 10% of last time.
You cancelled a subscription
Once a rule misses two charges in a row its tile says Missed 2. Click Pause: a paused rule isn't expected in bills to come and doesn't catch new charges. If you sign up again, Resume picks up its old schedule.
A one-off in a recurring category
A repair under Utilities, or a transfer that landed in Subscriptions, isn't a bill. Click Not recurring on it in Needs a rule and move it to a category that isn't recurring.
A refund or a reimbursement
Money coming back (a refund, or someone paying you back for their share of a bill) never needs a rule. It still brings that category's spending down, and a refund that matches a rule is linked to it, but it's left out of the rule's average cost.
Where your rules show up
Bills your rules expect but that haven't been charged yet appear as the striped part of every budget bar, in your pace, in the monthly dashboard's Recurring bills and in the everyday-spending chart, which sets your bills aside.