---
title: "Merchant Cleanup: Canonical Names from Raw Descriptors"
description: "Turn raw bank descriptors like SQ *BLUE BTL COF 0442 OAK into clean canonical merchant names with the Merchant Cleanup enrichment — near-zero setup, confidence-gated, never invented."
section: "Enrichments"
canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/enrichments/merchant-cleanup"
---

**Merchant Cleanup** fills the **Merchant Name** field from raw bank descriptors where your bank left it blank — `SQ *BLUE BTL COF 0442 OAK` becomes `Blue Bottle Coffee`. It is the near-zero-configuration member of the AI & learning group: create it, attach feeds, enable, done.

Like every AI fill, it only touches fields that are **still empty** after Memory, lookups, and your rules have run — a merchant name your provider supplied, or one you have taught Memory, is never overwritten.

## The output contract

The model is held to a fixed contract: return the **canonical merchant name** — title-cased, no store numbers, no city suffixes — or **nothing**.

- **It never invents a brand.** If the merchant cannot be identified from the descriptor, the field stays empty rather than guessing.
- **Confident names are written; uncertain ones are queued.** Cleanups apply when the model clears a confidence bar of 0.5 — deliberately lower than the AI Categorizer's 0.8 default, because a slightly-off name is cheap to correct and the correction loop absorbs it. Below the bar, the suggestion goes to the [Review Queue](/docs/enrichments/review-queue) for your decision instead.
- **Your corrections win permanently.** Fix a name in your connected sheet, database, or table and Memory learns it; Memory fills before AI, so the model never argues with you about a merchant you have named.

## Shared machinery with the AI Categorizer

Merchant Cleanup runs on the same engine as the [AI Categorizer](/docs/enrichments/ai-categorizer), and everything documented there about the engine applies here too:

- **Caching**: results are cached per merchant pattern, per workspace — a thousand rides from one rideshare cost one cleanup, and usage tracks new merchants, not transaction volume.
- **Nothing to configure, nothing to meter**: no model choice (one managed model serves every workspace), no threshold (fixed at 0.5), no target field (always Merchant Name). It is included in AI-carrying plans and does not draw down your AI assistant credits.
- **Per-sync cap**: at most 500 new (uncached) patterns go to the model per sync; a huge backfill spreads across syncs instead of burning credits at once.
- **Fail-open**: a model outage never blocks a sync — affected names stay empty and are retried next sync.
- **Privacy**: only normalized merchant patterns are sent to the model — never amounts, dates, account details, or raw statement lines — and the cache is never shared across workspaces.

## Setting it up

1. **Create it** — On the Enrichments tab, click "Add an enrichment" and choose Merchant Cleanup in the AI
   and learning group.
2. **Optionally pick the model** — Fast (the default) or balanced. Fast is right for almost everyone.
3. **Attach and enable** — In the Dependencies tab, tick the transaction feeds, then flip the switch to Enabled.
4. **Map the Merchant Name column** — Make sure Merchant Name is mapped in your feed's field mappings, or the cleaned names have
   nowhere to land in your destination.

![The Merchant Cleanup configuration form: a Nothing to configure card explaining that Merchant Cleanup fills the merchantName field from raw bank descriptors — for example SQ \*BLUE BOTTLE COF 4155551234 becoming Blue Bottle Coffee — wherever your bank did not provide one, with results cached per merchant, and a Model dropdown set to Fast (default).](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/enrichments/ai-merchant-form.a4bd397788fc6d89.png "The whole surface: an explainer card and the model choice — near-zero configuration by design.")

## Related guides

- [AI Categorizer](/docs/enrichments/ai-categorizer): the sibling enrichment and the full story on credits, caching, and privacy.
- [Review Queue](/docs/enrichments/review-queue): where below-threshold name suggestions wait for your decision.
- [Memory: auto-learn](/docs/enrichments/memory): the learning layer that makes your corrections permanent.
- [Configuring field mappings](/docs/bank-feeds/field-mappings): map the Merchant Name column.