Experiment: quicker category and account selection during import

[fnndyl]

I typically sort my transactions in bulk at the end of the month, and have been looking for a minimal expense tracking app for this purpose. ezBookkeeping seems great, but I found the workflow of clicking edit -> click category -> click through menu -> then click again to confirm the edit took a very long time, especially with so many transactions to categorize.

I thought this could be streamlined a bit, and have forked and made a few changes to the import menu as shown in the linked video:

• Quick drop downs for both category and account type
• Drop downs auto-select the search box for keyboard search without additional mouse input
• Arrow keys also work for selecting a category, though this is not shown in the video and a bit rudimentary at the moment

The video below demonstrates the changes, which I find make importing data much quicker. Would be interested in other peoples thoughts, and feedback. This was done pretty quickly and making heavy use of AI tools (this is NOT my area) so I cannot vouch for the quality of the code - this is mainly meant as a demonstration of what I thought could be a faster interface, with code changes on my fork at https://github.com/fnndyl/ezbookkeeping if anyone wants to look.

Screencast.From.2026-10-11.11-39-08.mp4

[fnndyl]

I realize batch rules would help here, but I had two notes/issues with these:

1. While I can set up batch rules (i.e. contains WOOLWORTHS categorize into FOOD) these do not seem to persist between data import sessions. Is this intentional? I can download the rules JSON but having to upload that every time seems suboptimal and means I need to have that file on hand to import quickly.
2. My preference is to sort transactions manually anyway, very much personal opinion but I feel I get a better 'feeling' for what I spent money on in the month.

[mayswind]

1. A PR (Focus the filter field when a two-column select opens #708) has already been merged to automatically focus the search field when opening dropdown menus for categories and accounts.
2. Navigation using the arrow keys is not currently supported, but support for it could be added.
3. Currently, batch rules can be loaded from local files and saved to local files. Obviously, different data sources may require different rules, so storing only one rule file would not be sufficient. If multiple rule files need to be stored, It could certainly consider adding a dedicated feature in ezBookkeeping to manage them. However, very few users have requested this functionality so far. If more users express a similar need in the future, I could consider supporting rule storage within the application.
4. Personally, I think that if you regularly rely on importing transactions, it would be more efficient to apply batch rules first, then manually review the results and make minor adjustments as needed.

[mayswind]

@fnndyl the latest daily build has supported arrow key navigation in the category and account dropdown menus