Payees

Maintained by Jason Ewing, founder of Tovari · Published Aug 29, 2026 · How we write these docs

What is a payee?

A payee is who a transaction was with: the shop, the utility, the employer. Tovari keeps them as their own list rather than as free text on each row, so that “Corner Store” is one thing you can rename once, set a default category for, and report on — instead of a dozen spellings of the same name scattered through your register.

Banks rarely send a tidy name. What arrives is raw card-terminal text, and part of a payee’s job is to be the readable name that sits in front of it.

Where can I manage payees?

The full payee directory is on a PC or Mac, on a phone browser, and in the mobile app. Browsing your payees, editing their matching rules, merging duplicates and setting default categories work in all three. On a PC or Mac you reach the directory from Edit Payees at the foot of a payee field. In the mobile app you reach it from the Edit Payees row at the foot of the payee suggestions when you add a one-time item in Cash Flow (see below). On a phone browser you reach it from the Payees row in Settings, or from the same Edit Payees row when you add a one-time item in Cash Flow.

Picking a payee — or creating one by typing a name that does not exist yet — while you are entering a transaction works everywhere: on a PC or Mac, on a phone browser, and in the mobile app.

Creating one as you go

You never have to create a payee up front. Type a name into a transaction’s payee field, and if it does not exist yet, Tovari creates it as part of saving that transaction. The same is true when you set up a bill.

That works on a PC or Mac, on a phone browser, and in the mobile app — a payee created on your phone mid-purchase is exactly the same payee you will see in the directory later.

Matching rules

A matching rule tells Tovari that raw bank text belongs to a particular payee. Each rule is a piece of text plus how it should match:

contains — the bank text has this text somewhere in it.
exact — the bank text is exactly this.
starts with — the bank text begins with this.

Rules are used when Tovari works out who a piece of incoming activity was with, whether it arrived through a bank connection or a file you imported. The more specific rule wins, so a narrow rule can safely sit alongside a broad one.

Rules are a way of teaching Tovari your own bank’s shorthand once, instead of renaming the same merchant every month.

Default categories

A payee can carry a default category, which is applied to new transactions for that payee.

Where that default came from decides whether Tovari may ever change it:

A default you set yourself is frozen. No automatic pass will move it, now or later. What you chose stands until you change it.
A default Tovari worked out for itself can be improved. Suggestions drawn from Tovari’s ready-made category list, from your bank’s own description of the payment, or from what Tovari has learned about that merchant are all treated as provisional, and can be replaced by a better answer later.

Setting a default only affects transactions from then on. If you want it applied to what is already in your register, Tovari offers to do that as a separate, explicit step, and tells you afterwards what it changed and what it deliberately left alone — rows you had categorized by hand are never overwritten, and money moving between your own accounts is never touched.

How do I merge duplicate payees?

Use Merge: pick the payee to keep and the ones to fold into it, and every transaction, matching rule and bill that pointed at the duplicates is moved across to the one you kept. The duplicates are retired, and nothing is lost from your register. The same shop can end up as two payees — one you typed, one that arrived from your bank under a different spelling.

Merging is the right tool for tidying up; it is not the same as deleting.

Deleting a payee

Deleting a payee retires it: it stops being offered when you are entering a transaction, and it drops out of the directory. Transactions you have already recorded against it keep the name they were given, so your history does not change under you. Bills that used the payee are detached from it and keep their own name, so they stay editable — and because that is the one part of a delete that changes something you can see elsewhere, Tovari asks you to confirm when a bill is involved.

Deleting also discards what Tovari had learned about that payee, including its matching rules, so that a future import cannot quietly re-create the payee you just removed. If what you actually want is to consolidate two spellings of the same merchant, merge them instead.

Where payee management lives

Open a payee field — in the register on the Transactions screen, or in the bill editor on Bills & Schedule — and the dropdown that appears carries Edit Payees at its foot. That opens the directory, landing on the payee the field was sitting on, so correcting a payee never means losing your place. Opening it from a blank field gives you the whole list.

The directory lists your payees with a search box. Selecting one shows its name, its default category, and its matching rules; you can add a payee, add and remove rules, merge a selection of payees, and delete one. It autosaves as you type — there is no Save button.

In the mobile app

When you add a one-time item in Cash Flow, the payee suggestions end with Edit Payees. Tap it and the draft you were filling in is set aside while the Payees screen opens — on the payee the field was sitting on, or on the full list if the field was blank. Coming back reopens the sheet with your draft intact; a payee you renamed shows its new name, and one you deleted or merged away is cleared from the field, keeping the text you typed.

The list has a search box and shows each payee’s rule and transaction counts. Tap a payee to edit its name, default category and matching rules, then press Save — unlike the web directory, nothing is saved until you do, and closing with unsaved changes asks whether to discard them. If the default category changed, Tovari offers to apply it to that payee’s existing transactions; if that fails you can retry.

Add payee creates one (searching for a name that does not exist offers to add it). Deleting asks you to confirm when bills use the payee, naming how many will be detached. Select lets you tick two or more payees, choose the one to keep and merge the rest. Changing the search while selecting clears your ticks, so a merge only ever includes payees you can see. Deleting and merging show a short summary of what moved.

On a phone browser

Open Settings from the header menu and tap Payees. The screen is the mobile app’s: a search box, and each payee with its rule and transaction counts. A small AI badge marks a name Tovari filled in for you.

Tap a payee to edit its name, its default category (including Income) and its matching rules — Contains, Exact match or Starts with — then press Save. Nothing is saved until you do, and closing with unsaved changes asks whether to discard them. If the default category changed, Tovari asks Update past transactions?; Update all transactions applies it to that payee’s existing transactions, and Not now leaves them as they are.

Delete payee asks you to confirm. When bills use the payee, the button becomes Delete and unlink with the number of bills, and those bills keep their own names. Select lets you tick two or more payees, choose the name to keep and Merge the rest. Changing the search while selecting clears your ticks, so a merge only ever includes payees you can see. Deleting and merging show a short summary of what moved. Pulling down to refresh is the mobile app’s only; reload the page to refresh the list in a browser.

Transactions — the register, where payees are set on individual rows.
Categories — the categories a payee default points at.
Categorizing spending — the order of signals Tovari uses to place a transaction, and what it will never overwrite.
Bills — schedules carry a payee too.
Where each feature works — the platform map for every documented feature.