Easy way to rename categories or tags?

glglasser

I need to rename some tags from a "nickname" to a more formal name. If I do this in a CSV and import it, I'll have a bunch of expenses with wrong tags. Is there a way to change a tags name and have it automatically applied to the relevant expenses?

Sheena Trepanier

Hi @glglasser, this is a really good question so thanks for posting it! If you update tag names it will not update expenses that are currently using that tag, sorry about that.

A workaround I found while doing some testing in my account about this would be to create an expense rule to change Unreported and Open expenses in bulk, based on the merchant name.

This method will be helpful if you have quite a large number of expenses from the same merchant because you can create a rule to retag all expenses by "merchant X".

To do this, you'd navigate to your Settings > Account > Expense Rules > click New Rule, and create a rule for each merchant you want to update in bulk. It's important to note that the merchant name must match exactly and that the checkbox for "Apply to existing matching expenses" is selected before saving the rule.

I hope this helps to save you some time!

Sheena Trepanier

@RachCHopkins and @glglasser - aaaaahh yes, thank you for sharing that one. I had forgotten about that.

To do this, I created a tiny walkthrough below for reference. These two options will be the best way to update existing tags on expenses.

To start, navigate to your Expenses page and filter your expenses by the tag you'd like to update first. Next, make sure you're only editing Unreported and Open expenses and then select all expenses. Click the Edit Multiple button to open the edit menu. (below)

In the Edit Multiple menu select the new tag and save the change. (below)

All your selected expenses will be updated to display the new tag. Please note that after changing the tag your expenses will look like they disappeared. This is because you will still have the filter applied to show your expenses using the original tag. Reset your filters and you should see the updated expenses.

glglasser

Yes, unfortunately that will not really work for me. Thanks for the answer though. It sure would be nice to have better management of tags within Expensify, including renaming.

Rachael Hopkins

@Sheena Trepanier @glglasser - Just a thought - you could go to the Expenses page and filter for all Open expenses with a certain tag, then select all and bulk update. It just means you would need to do it tag by tag.