> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.commander.finance/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Merchants

Merchants represent the businesses and entities you transact with. Commander uses merchants to group
related transactions and to automate budget line assignment for recurring spending.

## How merchants appear

Commander creates merchants automatically in two scenarios:

* **During transaction creation**—when you enter a merchant name that does not match any existing
  merchant, Commander creates a new merchant when you save the transaction.
* **During Plaid import**—when Commander imports transactions from your bank, it creates merchants
  for any new business names that appear in the imported data.

## Merchant properties

* **Display name**—the name shown throughout the app. You can rename a merchant at any time.
* **Matching transaction names**—a list of transaction name patterns that Commander uses to match
  imported transactions to this merchant. This allows multiple name variations from different banks
  to map to a single merchant.

## Linking merchants to budget lines

You can link a merchant to a budget line from the merchant detail page. Once linked, any new transaction
created with that merchant automatically fills in the linked budget line. This applies to both manually
created transactions and future imports from Plaid.

Linking affects future transactions only—existing transactions already assigned to other budget lines
are not reassigned.

## Merchant activity

The merchant detail page displays activity metrics including transaction count, average transaction
amount, the interval between transactions, and the date of the most recent transaction. A transaction
list shows all transactions associated with the merchant across all accounts.