Rules - Rules are not applied to all merchants after saving merchant with an asterisk (*)

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.3.11-17
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #80915
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): ibellicotest+2250@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Motorola MotoG60 / Android 12 (Hybrid app) - Windows 11 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Prerequisite: Account has at least one workspace.

1. Open the Expensify app.
2. Navigate to "Account" > "Expense Rules"
3. Tap on "New Rule"
4. On "If expense contains" tap on "Merchant"
5. Note that a "Type (*) to create a rule that applies to all merchants" message is visible below input.
6. Type an asterisk (*) and save.
7. On "Then apply these updates", add any category, description and any report name.
8. Save the created rule.
9. Navigate to workspace chat.
10. Create a manual expense with any merchant.
11. Note that rules are not applied.
12. Delete the just created expense.
13. Create a new manual expense with an asterisk (*) as merchant.
14. Note that rules are not applied to the expense.

Expected Result:

When user creates a rule and saves the merchant as an asterisk (*) in "If expense contains", the created rule should be applied to expenses created with any merchant.

Actual Result:

Rules are not applied to any merchant after creating a new rule and saving merchant as an asterisk (*) in "If expense contains".

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

@JS00001 recently merged #80915, but they are OOO right now, so I'll auto-assign someone else.

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @stephanieelliott (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @pecanoro (DeployBlockerCash), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/9980/ for more details.

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary

Classification: Backend bug
Causing PR: N/A - No App PR caused this issue (Low confidence)
Related PRs:

• Expense rules phase 2 #79659 - "Expense rules phase 2" (enabled create/edit/delete for personal expense rules)
• show Expense Rules tab in Account settings #80915 - "show Expense Rules tab in Account settings" (only added UI menu item)

Recommendation: NEEDS INVESTIGATION

This appears to be a backend bug where the rule matching logic does not properly handle wildcard () merchant matching. The App correctly allows users to create rules with () as the merchant (with the hint "Type (*) to create a rule that applies to all merchants"), but when expenses are created, the backend is not applying these wildcard rules.

Why this is a backend bug:

• No App PR introduced broken logic - this is a new feature working as designed on the frontend
• The App successfully saves rules with (*) merchant
• The bug occurs during expense creation when the backend attempts to match and apply rules
• The fix requires backend changes to implement proper wildcard merchant matching

Labels: DeployBlockerCash label should be REMOVED since this requires a backend fix, not an App revert.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The issue clearly states:

1. Users can create a rule with (*) as merchant
2. The UI shows "Type (*) to create a rule that applies to all merchants"
3. Rules are saved successfully
4. When creating expenses (with any merchant OR with (*) as merchant), rules are NOT applied

Feature Context

Personal expense rules is a NEW feature (version 9.3.11-17, N/A in production):

• PR Expense rules phase 1 (read-only mode) #77391 (Jan 6): Phase 1 - read-only mode
• PR Expense rules phase 2 #79659 (Jan 22): Phase 2 - create/edit/delete functionality
• PR show Expense Rules tab in Account settings #80915 (Jan 30): Made the tab visible in Account settings

Root Cause

The rule matching logic lives in the backend. When a user creates an expense, the backend should:

1. Fetch the user's expense rules
2. Match the expense merchant against rule criteria
3. Apply matching rules to the expense

The backend is failing to recognize (*) as a wildcard that should match all merchants. This is not an App bug because:

• The App has no control over when/how rules are applied
• The App simply saves rules via SetNameValuePair API calls
• Rule application happens server-side during expense creation

Recommended Action

Tag backend engineers to investigate and fix the wildcard merchant matching logic in the rule application system. The frontend is working correctly.