The Personal Identifier wizard helps ExpenseBot tag your personal receipts correctly when you use one credit card for both work and life. Five questions, about 90 seconds, one time.
Where to find it
Settings → Expense Organization → Personal expense rules. The same card remains available after setup so you can update the rules later.
What the questions do
| Question | What it does |
|---|---|
| Q1: Which card is mainly for personal use? | Enter the last 4 digits of your personal credit card. Every receipt where we can see that card number gets auto-tagged Personal at 100% confidence. The strongest single signal we have. |
| Q2: What do you buy on Amazon for yourself or family? | Pick categories — kids/baby, pet supplies, clothing, etc. Amazon orders containing those items get tagged Personal automatically. |
| Q3: Pay for streaming subscriptions? | Yes/no. If yes, Netflix, Spotify, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, etc. get tagged Personal. |
| Q4: Pick anything that applies (kids, pets, household, personal clothing) | Each chip you select adds keyword hints — receipts mentioning kids' clothing, pet food, cleaning supplies, etc. on any merchant get tagged Personal. |
| Q5: Personal trips? | Surfaces a tip about the tag: Personal subject command. Booking confirmations look identical for business vs vacation travel — the manual override is the reliable answer. |
What gets written
Your answers save to a structured preferences doc and generate tailored hints in both the Personal tag on the Tags tab and the Personal expense category on the Expense Accounts tab. The tag receives the strong personal-use signals. The category receives a narrower rule: use generic Personal only when no more specific category fits. That means a pharmacy receipt can remain Medical + Personal instead of losing useful accounting detail.
A typical generated description looks like:
[Your existing description preserved verbatim]
--- Personal Identifier hints (you can edit these freely) ---
- Visa 1234, ****1234, ending 1234, or XX 1234 → Personal
- Amazon orders with line items mentioning kids, baby, toy → Personal
- Netflix, Spotify, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu → Personal
- receipts mentioning pet food, vet, kids' clothing → Personal
--- end Personal Identifier hints ---
Anything you wrote above either fence stays exactly as you had it. The wizard only manages its fenced sections.
Applying the rule to existing receipts
When you save the wizard, you can check "Apply the Personal tag to matching existing receipts". ExpenseBot scans your past receipts for matches and re-tags any that should now be Personal. It does not rewrite their expense categories. Custom-tagged rows (Wedding, Realtor, Property, etc.) are protected — only generic Business/Personal rows get reconsidered.
Re-running the wizard
Open Settings → Expense Organization → Personal expense rules whenever your card or personal-spending patterns change.
What happens on Gmail scans afterward
Every nightly Gmail scan checks each receipt against your preferences:
- If the receipt's payment method matches your personal card → tag = Personal at 100% confidence
- Otherwise, the AI reads your description hints and matches receipt content (line items, merchant, etc.) → tags Personal if a hint fires
- Otherwise, default behavior — Business for sole props, content-based for others
When the wizard isn't enough
Some personal receipts can't be detected from content alone — vacation hotel bookings look identical to business hotel bookings. For those, forward the email with tag: Personal anywhere in the subject line. ExpenseBot tags it Personal at 100% confidence — no guessing.