This feature is only available for Google Sheets at this time.
Easily get started with your transaction categorization using AI Suggest for AutoCat. Have your transaction data intelligently categorized in seconds.
How to Use AutoCat with AI Suggest (Beta)
This is our recommended workflow for using AI Suggest (Beta) with AutoCat.
If you're brand new to Tiller, double check the Categories sheet to make sure the default categories make sense for your financial life and make any edits directly to the categories or add new ones to the bottom of the list.
Categorize a few examples so AutoCat can learn your patterns. We recommend categorizing a few recurring expenses like your rent or mortgage, utilities, favorite grocery store and things like that. You don't need to categorize all the data, just a few examples from the last month for a few different places you shop.
Confirm that AI Suggest is turned on in the AutoCat settings section.
Click "Run AutoCat" in the main Tiller Money Feeds sidebar to categorize your transactions.
You can always run it with the default categories to see how it works and then refine your categories later.
The AI Suggest feature only works when running AutoCat manually by clicking the Run AutoCat button right now. It does not run when the AutoCat process runs on fill at this time.
If there are things it doesn't get quite right, add explicit AutoCat rules on the AutoCat sheet so you can categorize just the way you want. Your rules will always take precedence over AI Suggest's recommendation.
Create an exclusion rule
If you want it to skip a merchant because it's unlikely to get right, like Amazon purchases, we recommend adding a category for "Categorize Later" or "Skip" then create an AutoCat rule for that merchant using the Description Contains column.
This feature is still in beta. There may be bugs, odd behavior, or timeouts. If you find a bug or have a question, write to beta@tillerhq.com. See our known bugs and limitations section below.
The experimental workflow applies categories to the Category column. If unexpected/undesired changes are made, use the Google Sheets version history to restore to a prior version.
Turning on AI Suggest
AI Suggest may be turned on for you by default. To double check or turn it on follow these steps.
Open your Google Sheet and launch Tiller Money Feeds from the Extensions menu at the top of your Google Sheet.
Open the AutoCat Settings section by clicking the gear icon next to AutoCat in the sidebar. Be sure to keep the "only uncategorized" option selected, we have not tested how this would work when you choose "ALL"
Toggle on the AI Suggest option. Note that at this time the AI Suggest feature does not run on fill if you have Auto Run on Fill enabled, it will only run when manually running AutoCat.
How it works
You don't have to use AI Suggest. If turned off you can still use AutoCat rules to automatically categorize transactions.
When enabled, AI Suggest will attempt to categorize the remaining uncategorized transactions after your AutoCat rules have been processed. AutoCat rules will always take precedence if you have them.
After AutoCat finishes categorizing based on your rules, AI Suggest will take over and try to categorize anything that didn't have a rule match. It will first try to match the full description of the transaction against prior matching transactions with the same full description. Please note that full description is a separate column out right in the Transactions sheet, distinct from the Description column.
If there is no prior matching transactions based on full description, or prior matching transactions have different categories applied, it will attempt to categorize using an LLM.
If the LLM isn't confident about what category to use, it will leave the category blank.
If you want more details about how the AI Suggest process works, feel free to write to beta@tillerhq.com. You can also add a Categorization Notes column to your Transactions sheet to see which stage of the process tried to categorize the transaction. This column will not fill retroactively and will only populate for newly categorized transactions after it was added.
How to clean up categories after using AI Suggest (Beta)
If you started with the default categories and ran AutoCat after getting started and have changed your mind about your categories and want to clean things up use these steps:
Customize your categories on the Categories sheet. See our tips here.
Navigate to the Transactions sheet and turn on the filter. Steps are here.
Filter on the Category column to show only categories you've removed or changed one at a time.
Option 1: clear out the Category column for these transactions and click "Run AutoCat" to have AutoCat with AI Suggest enabled try again or categorize a few examples then Run AutoCat to make sure it has some "training" examples for a higher chance it will get it right.
Option 2: categorize one then use the fill handle to update the instances below the first one that will use the same category. Repeat as needed for different categories.
Known Bugs & Limitations
If you find a bug or issue write to beta@tillerhq.com.
It does not run on the Auto Run on Fill process, it can only be run by manually clicking "Run AutoCat"
AI Suggest will not run when the ALL Transactions option is selected from the AutoCat settings screen since it can only process transactions that are uncategorized.
Sometimes the process can crash and the sidebar doesn't gracefully handle the crash so it gets stuck in the "Categorizing transactions" state. If it's running for more than 20+ minutes, it likely crashed and you should close the sidebar and try again later.
It is unlikely to work when trying to categorize very large datasets (e.g. 20K+ transactions). We don't know the explicit maximum number of transactions it can attempt to categorize but 20K is definitely too many right now.