How keel learns your merchants

keel builds a memory of your merchants that belongs to your household alone. Once a merchant is categorised — by the AI with high confidence or by you — future transactions from that merchant are categorised instantly, with no review needed.

This is what makes keel get quieter over time: the first import asks questions, the third one barely needs you.

How it works

Raw bank descriptions are messy ("DD TESCO STORES 3947 LDN"), so keel cleans them up first: stripping prefixes and transaction noise, matching 80+ known UK brands, and producing a readable display name. The cleaned merchant becomes the lookup key for keel's memory.

On every import, keel checks its memory first. A confident match means instant categorisation. keel also ships knowing the most common UK merchants (Costa, Netflix, Aldi, the big utilities, fuel forecourts...), so those file instantly too, even on your very first import. The AI is only asked about the merchants neither your memory nor that built-in list already covers — and if you ever disagree with how one of the known names was filed, correcting it once makes your choice win from then on.

Learning from the wider community

Between the built-in list and the AI, keel can also lean on what the wider community has already worked out. When lots of households have all filed the same shop under the same category, keel treats that as a settled answer and applies it for everyone — so a brand-new household gets that merchant categorised correctly on its very first import, with no AI needed.

This is the layer that fills the long tail: the regional shops and smaller chains that aren't big enough for the built-in list, but that plenty of households have already categorised the same way. It only ever fills in gaps — your own decisions always come first, so if you've categorised a merchant yourself, that's what keel uses.

Your privacy is protected by design. keel only learns from shops that lots of households agree on, never from one person's spending, and never for a merchant households genuinely disagree about. It only learns keel's built-in categories, never anything you've named yourself — your custom categories stay private to you. And the only thing shared is the merchant name and how many households chose each category: no amounts, no dates, nothing that identifies a household or a person. If a household leaves keel, its data stops counting. There's nothing to set up — it just means keel starts out a little smarter for everyone.

Shops that can be two categories

Some shops legitimately fall into more than one category. A supermarket is groceries in the store and fuel at its petrol station; Amazon could be almost anything. keel handles these carefully, so one correction never wrongly freezes every future transaction onto a single category.

• When the receipt shows the difference, keel splits it for you. A forecourt line ("Tesco PFS", "Tesco Petrol") files as fuel; the store line ("Tesco Stores", "Tesco Express") files as groceries. No review needed.
• When your own history shows you genuinely split a shop, keel stops guessing. It asks the AI to judge each transaction from its amount and description rather than locking one category in.
• Otherwise, your saved rule just works. If your bank only shows a plain "Tesco" and you've always put it in one category, keel keeps filing it there automatically instead of sending every Tesco transaction to your review queue. It only starts second-guessing a shop once your own history shows you splitting it — and it still recognises the shop correctly if you've renamed or merged it.

Two learning paths

• AI learning — when the AI categorises a merchant with high confidence, keel remembers it for next time.
• Your corrections — when you confirm or correct a category, your decision always overrides anything the AI learned.

One-off vs permanent corrections

When you change the category for a merchant keel already has a well-established rule for, it asks whether you mean the change permanently:

• "Just this once" — this transaction gets the new category, but the merchant's default stays. Use this for exceptions — a wheelbarrow at Tesco is Home & Garden, but Tesco should still default to Groceries.
• "Always [new category]" — all future transactions from this merchant use the new category.

For merchants keel has barely seen, your correction updates the memory silently — keel only asks when you're overriding an established pattern.

Remembering transfers and debt repayments

Merchant memory also covers a payee's type, not just its category. When you confirm a merchant as a transfer or a debt repayment, keel remembers it — the next import auto-classifies that payee out of the review queue instead of asking again. This is what stops a credit-card payment or a monthly standing order coming back to be re-confirmed every single month.

keel only remembers the "not spending, not income" types — transfers, debt repayments and loan receipts. Regular expenses, income, refunds and reimbursements are handled by the normal category memory instead. And keel only learns a type when you confirm it yourself; it never guesses a transaction's type for you.

Once learned, keel works out the direction each time: money out to a debt payee is a debt repayment, money in is a loan receipt — so one confirmation covers both. If you later undo a transfer ("This isn't a transfer"), keel forgets the payee's type and treats it as fresh again on your next import.

Business learning

Merchant memory also covers the personal/business flag. Confirm a merchant as personal spending on a business account once, and keel suggests it as personal on the next business import. You can also explicitly mark a merchant as always business. The same "just this once or always?" prompt applies when changing an established pattern.

If you have two or more businesses, keel also remembers which business each merchant belongs to — tag a merchant to one business once and future transactions auto-tag, for income as well as expenses. With a single business there's only one answer, so keel never asks. Flipping a merchant back to non-business clears the learning and keel treats it as fresh. See Business accounts.

Viewing and managing what keel has learned

Settings → Merchant rules shows every merchant keel knows, in two groups: Learned (confident, consistent) and Needs attention (fewer observations or less certainty). You can search, sort, change any merchant's category, or remove a rule entirely — keel re-learns that merchant from scratch on your next import.

Merchant detail

Tap a merchant name anywhere in the app to open its detail page: this month vs your 3-month average, the categories it's appeared in, a spending trend chart, recent transactions and the current rule. Where the pattern is clear, keel describes your rhythm with the merchant — "You shop here weekly, around £72 a visit" or "Monthly · £14.99 · unchanged 8 months". If the pattern is unclear, keel doesn't guess. See Merchant pages for the full tour.

Hygiene reminders

keel scans daily for merchants whose categorisation could be tidier and surfaces fixes in your inbox:

• Worth consolidating — most of a merchant's transactions are in one category but a few strayed. One tap moves them all.
• Rule mismatch — the saved rule says one category but recent transactions mostly go elsewhere. Update the rule to match reality.
• Multiple categories — a merchant is genuinely split with no clear leader (Deliveroo across Groceries, Eating Out and Takeaway). Pick a primary or accept the split.
• Worth locking in — a merchant you've categorised 5+ times with no rule yet. Lock it in so future imports auto-categorise.

Three or fewer reminders appear as individual cards with one-tap fixes; four or more collapse into a single card that opens a dedicated review screen where you can fix merchants one at a time or "Apply all" per section. Fix an issue anywhere in the app and the reminder disappears within seconds. Dismissed or fixed reminders don't return until the next month, and only if they still apply.

keel never flags sensitive merchants — pharmacies, therapists, solicitors, funeral services and gambling sites are always skipped.

Renaming merchants

Bank feeds produce names like "AMZN MKTP" or "TV LICENCE QBP1". On the merchant detail page, tap the pencil icon to rename. The new name appears everywhere immediately — transaction list, reports, recurring charges, coaching — and the original bank description is kept for reference. If the merchant is a payment processor (GoCardless, PayPal, Stripe), keel warns that renaming affects every transaction through that processor.

Merging merchants

When one real business appears under several names ("Woodcroft Vets", "Woodcroft Veterina", "Woodcroft Vet Group WD"), merge them:

1. From the rename screen — keel shows similar merchants it found; tick the ones that are the same business and confirm.
2. From "Merge with another merchant" on the detail page — search for the target and review a preview before confirming.

Merging combines all transactions under one name, keeps the stronger categorisation rule, leaves individual transaction categories unchanged, and applies to future imports of the old name automatically. Merges cannot be undone. If two merchants have clearly different spending patterns (Amazon vs Amazon Music), keel warns you before merging.

Good to know

• Merchant learning applies to new imports only. To fix existing transactions, use the bulk recategorise offer on the transaction detail page.
• Each category carries built-in guidance that quietly helps the AI on tricky edge cases — for example, baby clothes go to Clothing, not Childcare; Childcare is for paying someone to care for or educate a child.

FAQ

How does keel know a shop's category before I've ever categorised it? Two ways. keel ships knowing the most common UK merchants, so those file instantly on your first import. Beyond that, keel can learn from the wider community: when lots of households have all filed the same shop under the same category, keel treats that as the answer and applies it for everyone. It only does this for shops many households agree on, only for keel's built-in categories, and only using the merchant name and a count of how many households chose each category — never your amounts, dates, or anything that identifies you. Your own decision always wins: categorise the merchant yourself and your choice takes over.

I keep having to mark the same payment as a transfer every month — why? keel now fixes this. When you confirm a payee as a transfer or a debt repayment, keel remembers its type and auto-classifies it out of the review queue on the next import. Confirm your credit-card payment or standing order to savings once and it should stop coming back. If you later undo it ("This isn't a transfer"), keel forgets the type and treats the payee as fresh again. This covers transfers, debt repayments and loan receipts — everyday expenses and income are handled by the normal category memory instead.

I corrected a merchant but old transactions still show the wrong category. Learning applies to new imports. Use bulk recategorise on the transaction detail page to fix existing ones.

Why doesn't keel ask me every time I change a category? For merchants keel has only seen once or twice, there's no established pattern to protect. The prompt only appears when you're overriding a well-established rule.

I chose "Just this once" but now want to change the default. Change the category on any future transaction from that merchant and pick "Always [category]" when prompted.

I deleted a merchant rule — what happens to existing transactions? They keep their current category. keel re-learns the merchant from scratch on your next import.

A merchant appears in multiple categories. How do I fix it? Open the merchant's detail page. If one category dominates (90%+ of transactions), keel offers a one-tap consolidate. For more even splits, "Pick one category" shows just the categories the merchant already appears in.

The trend chart ends with an amber dot and then nothing. Why? The dot marks the last month keel has data for. Months after it show "Not yet synced" rather than £0 — missing data isn't the same as spending nothing. Import the latest statements to extend the line.

Can I undo a merge? No. keel warns clearly before you confirm. If you're unsure, rename the merchants individually instead.

keel warned me about different spending patterns before a merge. Should I still merge? Only if you're sure they're the same business. Different patterns usually mean different services — merging makes them harder to track separately.