actualbudget/actual

[Bug]: Rule with payee is "nothing" never matching

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#5724 opened on Sep 14, 2025

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 (7 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)JavaScript (7,129 stars) (603 forks)batch import
bughelp wantedrules

Description

Verified issue does not already exist?

  • I have searched and found no existing issue

What happened?

My rules are not applying automatically when I sync new transactions. I have to manually go through each rule and apply them. Am I missing something ? They should not apply automatically?

How can we reproduce the issue?

How can we reproduce the issue? Here's an example. Not sure if rules apply automatically only if using payees. In my case, the payees come as notes (using pluggy). I tried all 3 stages.

Where are you hosting Actual?

Docker

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

Firefox

Operating System

Windows 11

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javascriptnodejs
Domain
backend
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
None
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
65
Research direction
The bug is that rules with payee set to 'nothing' never match. Investigate the rule matching logic in the source code, likely in the server side rule engine. Look for how payee conditions are evaluated and whether empty or 'nothing' strings are handled correctly. Check for existing tests related to rule matching and payee conditions. If possible, find the exact file(s) where rule conditions are parsed and matched, such as 'src/server/rules/...' or similar.