CardPulse's dual-mode entry system lets you add transactions however you prefer — type a quick sentence and let the NLP parser handle the rest, or fill in every field manually. Both modes feed into the exact same form.
- 🔀 Two Entry Modes
- 🧠 Quick Add (NLP)
- ⚙️ NLP Pipeline
- 📝 Example Parses
- 🎯 Confidence Indicators
- 🧑🏫 Teaching the System
- ✍️ Manual Entry
- 📋 Transaction Form Fields
- ✏️ Editing Transactions
- 📃 Transaction List
- 🔍 Filtering & Sorting
- 🗑️ Bulk Operations
CardPulse offers dual-mode input at the top of the Transactions page:
| Mode | How it Works | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| ⚡ Quick Add | Type a natural-language sentence → NLP parser extracts data | Fast daily entries |
| 📝 Manual Entry | Fill in each field using dropdowns and inputs | Full control, unusual entries |
🔄 Both modes populate the same underlying form. Quick Add pre-fills fields where possible; Manual Entry starts empty. Switch between modes freely using the tab toggle.
The Quick Add input sits at the very top of the Transactions page. Below it: filter chips, a transaction count + monthly total, and the full list.
Type what you spent in plain language:
fuel 200 mycard yesterday
Press Enter or click the submit arrow. The NLP parser runs entirely offline — no API calls, no LLM, no data leaves your machine — and pre-fills the form below with extracted data.
🛡️ Key principle: The parser can never block transaction entry. If it fails to extract a field, that field is simply left empty for you to fill manually. NLP is an accelerator, not a gatekeeper.
The parser runs 4 stages in sequence. Each stage is independent — if one fails, the others still run:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ "fuel 200 mycard yesterday" │
│ │
│ Stage 1: 💰 Amount Extraction ──→ 200 │
│ Stage 2: 💳 Card Matching ─────→ My Premium Card │
│ Stage 3: 📅 Date Detection ────→ Yesterday │
│ Stage 4: 🏷️ Keyword Matching ──→ Vehicle > Fuel │
│ │
│ ════════════════════════════════════════════════════ │
│ Result: Form pre-filled with all extracted fields │
│ Missing fields left empty for manual input │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Recognizes numbers with optional currency codes and formatting:
| Pattern | Example | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Plain number | 200, 45.50 |
200, 45.50 (in your configured currency) |
| With commas | 1,234.56 |
1,234.56 |
| Currency prefix | USD 200 |
200 |
| Currency suffix | 200 USD |
200 |
The currency code is whatever you've set in Settings → General. The parser recognises any 3-letter currency code in either position.
💡 If multiple numbers are found, the parser uses the most likely amount (skipping values that look like dates or years).
Fuzzy-matches text against card aliases stored in the database:
| Match Type | Confidence | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 🎯 Exact match | 1.0 | "my premium card" → My Premium Card |
| 📏 Substring match | 0.95 | "premium" → My Premium Card |
| 🔍 Fuzzy match (Fuse.js) | ≥ 0.7 | "premum" → My Premium Card |
When a card is matched, its text is stripped from the input before keyword matching. This prevents card aliases from interfering with category detection.
⚠️ Ambiguity protection: If an alias could match multiple cards (e.g.,"cashback"matches two different cards, or"bank name"matches multiple cards at the same bank), the parser rejects the match entirely rather than guessing wrong. You pick the card from the dropdown.
Understands relative and absolute dates:
| Pattern | Examples |
|---|---|
| 📍 Relative | today, yesterday |
| 📆 Day names | saturday, last friday |
| 🗓️ Month + day | feb 5, 5 february |
| 📝 Slash format | 05/02 (interpreted as DD/MM) |
📅 If no date is found, defaults to today.
Runs remaining text against 91+ keyword rules using Fuse.js:
- 🎯 Exact substring match checked first (e.g.,
"enoc"→ Vehicle > Fuel) - 🔍 Fuzzy match as fallback (e.g.,
"shoes"→ Shopping > Clothes & Shoes) - 📂 Subcategory name fallback if no keyword rule matches
🏅 Priority: User-created rules always take priority over system rules.
| Input | 💰 Amount | 📂 Category | 💳 Card | 📅 Date | 🏷️ Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
fuel 200 mycard |
200 | Vehicle > Fuel | My Card | Today | Vehicle Expenses, My Card |
food delivery 85 yesterday |
85 | Food & Drinks > Restaurant, Fast-Food | — | Yesterday | Food Delivery |
netflix 55 |
55 | Life & Entertainment > TV, Streaming | — | Today | Subscriptions, Bills and Subs |
bought shoes 400 |
400 | Shopping > Clothes & Shoes | — | Today | — |
random thing 150 |
150 | User selects | — | Today | — |
paid 300 for AC repair |
300 | Housing > Maintenance, Repairs | — | Today | — |
200 |
200 | User selects | — | Today | — |
💡 Notice the graceful degradation: From fully parsed (
fuel 200 mycard) to bare minimum (200), the form always works. You just fill in what the parser couldn't figure out.
In Quick Add mode, each auto-filled field shows a colored dot:
| Indicator | Meaning | Score Range |
|---|---|---|
| 🟢 Green dot | High confidence — auto-filled correctly | ≥ 0.9 |
| 🟡 Amber dot | Low confidence — might need your correction | < 0.9 |
| ⚪ No dot | Not auto-filled — you must enter this field | — |
📝 Confidence dots only appear in Quick Add mode. In Manual Entry and Edit modes, no dots are shown.
When you modify an auto-filled field before saving (e.g., change the category from what the parser suggested), a Learn prompt appears:
💬 "Remember 'keyword' for next time?"
Click Yes to save your correction as a new keyword rule:
- 🏅 Has higher priority than system rules
- 🔄 Will be used in future Quick Add parses automatically
- ⚙️ Can be managed from Settings > Keywords (see Settings Reference)
🧠 This is how CardPulse gets smarter over time — each correction you make improves future accuracy. The more you use Quick Add, the better it gets.
Switch to the Manual Entry tab to get a completely empty form:
- 🚫 No NLP parsing happens
- 🚫 No confidence dots shown
- 🚫 No learn prompt appears
- ✅ All fields blank and ready for input
💡 Use Manual Entry when you want full control, when the input doesn't suit natural-language parsing, or when you're entering a transaction with specific fields already in mind.
The form is the same one Quick Add pre-fills, just empty: Amount, Date, Category, Subcategory, Card (defaults to None / Cash-Bank), Labels and Notes. Save closes the form; Save & Add Another keeps it open for rapid back-to-back entries.
The same form is used across Quick Add, Manual Entry, and Edit modes:
| Field | Required | Type | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💰 Amount | ✅ | Number input | Configured currency, JetBrains Mono font |
| 📅 Date | ✅ | Date picker | Defaults to today |
| 📂 Category | ✅ | Dropdown | 11 main categories; selecting one filters subcategories |
| 📁 Subcategory | ✅ | Dropdown | Filtered by selected category |
| 💳 Card | ❌ | Dropdown | Active cards + "None (Cash/Bank)". Auto-adds card label when selected |
| 🏷️ Labels | ❌ | Multi-select chips | Searchable, shows system + custom labels |
| 📝 Notes | ❌ | Text input | Free-text for additional context |
Action buttons:
- 💾 Save — Saves and closes the form
- ➕ Save & Add Another — Saves, clears the form, keeps it open for the next entry
👆 Click any transaction row in the list to open it in edit mode. The same TransactionForm appears pre-filled with the transaction's current values. Modify any field and click Save.
The main transactions page shows all transactions in a table — see the first screenshot at the top of this guide for the full layout.
Each row displays:
- 📅 Date (formatted per your settings)
- 📝 Description and merchant name
- 💰 Amount (monospace font, right-aligned)
- 🏷️ Category/Subcategory badges
- 💳 Card badge (color-coded)
- 🏷️ Label chips
- ⚙️ Actions — Edit and delete buttons
📊 A summary bar at the top shows the transaction count and total amount for the current filter.
| Filter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 📅 Date range | Start + end date pickers | Show transactions within a period |
| 📂 Category | Dropdown | Filter by main category |
| 📁 Subcategory | Dropdown | Filtered by selected category |
| 💳 Card | Dropdown | Filter by credit card |
| 🏷️ Label | Dropdown | Filter by any label |
| 🔎 Search | Text input | Full-text search across descriptions |
| Column | Default |
|---|---|
| 📅 Date | ✅ Descending (newest first) |
| 💰 Amount | Ascending/Descending |
| 📂 Category | Alphabetical |
- ☑️ Select transactions using row checkboxes (or "Select All")
- 🗑️ A Delete (n) button appears showing the count
- 👆 Click to delete — a confirmation dialog appears
- ✅ Confirm to permanently remove all selected transactions
⚠️ Bulk delete is irreversible. Make sure you've selected the right transactions before confirming.
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