The explanation rules page provides an overview of all explanation rules defined in the Actuals platform. Explanation rules allow users to assign an explanation category to a transaction based on a set of properties of the transaction. These rule are specific to matching packages and are executed in sequence (top in the list first, then the second one for transaction for which the first cannot be applied, etc). The condition define the properties a transaction should have to meet the criterea of a rule a transaction should meet all properties. The explanation rules are applied whenever the transactions are matching/compared within a matchingpackage. This means after adding a rule, the matching run needs to be executed for the rules to take effect. At the top right of the page it’s possible to add a new rule by clicking the button. The rules can be filtered on the matching packages for which they are applied, by default all rules are shown. The first column in the tabel is a drag icon, clicking it can be used to drag the rule to a new order in the list. This can be used to defined the sequence of the explanation rules. When applying rules, the sequence is important as once a category I assigned to a transaction by a rule, no other rules can be applied on the category.
Each category configured shows the following properties
- Rule Id : internal identifier
- Rule name : name of the rule used in the platform
- Matching sources : on which matching packages is the rule applied
- Category : which category is applied by the rule. Note that multiple rules can assign the same category when the conditions are met
- Transactions explained : the total number of transaction for all date ranges for all matching packages that are explained with this category
- Defintion : Hovering over Definition shows the condition of the rule.
Apart from deleting a rule by clicking a link at the end of the row, a rule can also be edited. The popup is the same as adding a new category.
Adding / editing an explanation rule
When adding or editing an explanation rule the following properties need to be configured
- Name : name of the rule used in the platform
- Matching sources : on which matching packages is the rule applied. Therefore this can more than one. When defining All the rule will be used in all
- Category : which category is applied by the rule. Note that multiple rules can assign the same category when the conditions are met
- Status : what matching status is assigned to the transactions that meet the conditions of the rule
- Conditions : what are the conditions on a transaction to assign the explanation category
Multiple conditions can be added in which case a transaction needs to meet all the conditions. When any of the transactions meet the condition, all other transactions with the same balancekey also get assigned the category based on the rule. So assume we have the following transactions
source | transactionid | amount | customparam1 |
A | 123 | 20 | cancelled |
B | 123 | 20 | success |
A | 124 | 20 | success |
A | 125 | 20 | success |
C | 125 | 20 | cancelled |
And assume we have a matching package with transactionid as balancekey that compares A with B. If we apply an explanation rule with condition customparam1 equals “cancelled” then
- both transactions for 123 will be explained as the first transaction meets the condition of the rule and the second transaction has the same balancekey
- the transaction in C for 125 meets the condition as well. Eventhough C is not part of the matching package, the same balancekey is used in the transaction in the A source and hence that transaction is explained.
To prevent the last scenario, an additional filter source is in list A and B can be added.