What is "Ask My Accountant" for?

It's a built-in Other Expense account meant for genuinely uncertain transactions: flag it there instead of guessing, so the client or accountant can weigh in with the right answer rather than a miscategorized transaction quietly sitting on the P&L.

What's the fastest way to clear a large backlog?

Set up Bank Rules for every recurring vendor first: that stops new uncategorized transactions from a large chunk of your feed going forward. For what's left, use the For Review tab's multi-select and Update/Apply flow to batch-categorize rather than working one transaction at a time.

Does a Bank Rule I set up for one client help with another client?

No, Bank Rules live inside a single QuickBooks file, and the same vendor name can mean something different at different clients. Clerai's categorization engine builds separate per-client rules for exactly this reason, so a decision at one client doesn't get incorrectly force-applied to another.

How to handle uncategorized transactions in QuickBooks

Every QuickBooks Online file has three built-in holding accounts, Uncategorized Expense, Uncategorized Income, and Uncategorized Asset, that can't be deleted or merged away. The balance in them is really just a to-do list. Here's a repeatable way to clear it and keep it from growing back.

Why transactions end up there in the first place

The bank feed can't auto-match a vendor it hasn't seen before
No Bank Rule exists yet for a recurring vendor
A transaction is a genuine judgment call: personal vs. business, or a one-off that doesn't fit cleanly
Duplicate or split transactions from the bank feed that need a manual decision

1
Know where uncategorized transactions actually land
QuickBooks Online routes anything it can't confidently categorize into one of three system accounts: Uncategorized Expense, Uncategorized Income, or Uncategorized Asset. These accounts can't be deactivated or merged, so the only way to "clean" them is to actually recategorize every transaction sitting inside. There's no shortcut that hides the balance.
2
Work the For Review tab first, not the chart of accounts
Uncategorized transactions usually start in the bank feed's For Review tab before they're ever posted. Clearing this tab weekly instead of monthly is the single biggest lever: a backlog of 200 bank-feed transactions is a very different job than 15.
3
Set up Bank Rules for anything recurring
Any vendor that shows up every month, SaaS subscriptions, payroll, rent, recurring utilities, should get a Bank Rule matched on description, bank text, or amount so it never hits Uncategorized again. Rules are the single highest-leverage QBO feature for this problem; most firms under-use them.
4
Batch-categorize what's left with Update, not one by one
For transactions without a rule, select multiple rows in the For Review tab, use Update to assign a category to the whole batch at once, then Apply. One-by-one categorization is where most of the time actually goes for a backlog.
5
Use Ask My Accountant for genuine uncertainty, don't guess
When a transaction is genuinely ambiguous, an unfamiliar vendor, an unclear personal-vs-business charge, a one-off that doesn't fit an existing category, QuickBooks' Ask My Accountant account exists exactly for this. Flagging it there and asking the client beats guessing and quietly miscategorizing something that shows up wrong on the P&L later.
6
Don't let the same vendor get flagged twice
If you're re-deciding what the same recurring vendor is every single month, that's a Bank Rule you haven't written yet, not a categorization task. Every manual decision on a recurring vendor should end with a rule, not just a one-off fix.

Where this still breaks down at scale

Bank Rules solve the recurring-vendor problem per file, but they don't carry across clients: the same vendor name ("Amazon", "Uber") can mean something different at every client, so a rule at one firm's file doesn't help at the next. Clerai's categorization engine builds per-client rules instead of one global model, so a decision you make for one client's "Amazon" doesn't get force-applied to another client where it means something else, and every approval you make tightens that specific client's rules going forward.

Read the full categorization guide

Common questions

See how Clerai clears the queue

AI categorization with per-client rules, a review queue built to clear in minutes, and a 14-day free trial.

Also see categorizing QuickBooks transactions faster and the Uncat alternative comparison.