Firm memory
How Spyral learns from your corrections
Spyral remembers the corrections your firm makes and applies them to future documents. Learn when a correction takes effect and how to manage what has been learned.
When you correct something Spyral proposed, the correction is not thrown away. Spyral records it, and once it trusts it, applies it to the next document that looks the same. This is what stops you recoding the same supplier onto the same account every month.
Open Firm Memory in the sidebar to see what has been learned so far.
When a correction starts being applied
This is the part worth understanding properly, because it explains why one correction works immediately and another appears to be ignored.
Correct something while reviewing it and it applies immediately. Correct it anywhere else and it has to happen three times first.
In detail:
- A correction made during a review sign-off is active straight away. Reviewing an entry is a deliberate act of judgement, so Spyral treats what you decided there as settled and starts using it on the next document.
- A correction made outside review starts as Learning. Editing a ledger directly is often a quick fix rather than a considered rule, so Spyral watches instead of acting. Once the same correction has been made three times, it becomes Active and starts being applied.
- Confirming it in a review promotes it at once. A rule sitting in Learning becomes Active the moment a reviewer signs off an entry that uses it. You do not have to wait for three.
- Only Active rules are used. Anything still Learning is being counted, not applied.
Changing your mind
If you correct a rule to a different value outside a review, that rule goes back to Learning and starts counting again from one.
The trust the old value earned does not carry over to the new one. If you had coded a supplier to one account eight times and now code it to another, Spyral does not simply switch. It stops applying the old value and waits for the new one to earn its place, either by repeating three times or by being confirmed in a review.
This is deliberate. A single mistyped account code should not overturn a rule your firm has confirmed for months. But it does mean that if you have genuinely changed your policy, the fastest way to make it stick is to make the correction while reviewing an entry, not in a bulk edit.
Where Spyral learns
The Surface filter groups rules by where they came from.
| Surface | What it learns |
|---|---|
| Bookkeeping | Which account and which tax code a given supplier and description should be posted to, and how a supplier's name should be written. |
| Classification | What kind of document something is, when you correct the classification. |
| Companies | Corrections to company details read out of documents. |
| People | Corrections to people read out of documents. |
The three statuses
- Learning, the correction has been seen but is not being applied yet.
- Active, Spyral is applying this.
- Retired, you have told Spyral to stop using this.
A retired rule never comes back on its own. Once you retire something, later corrections that agree with it are still recorded, but the rule stays retired until you promote it again by hand. This is intentional. Retiring is how you say "never do that again", and a rule that quietly reappeared would defeat the point.
Reading a rule
Each rule shows what it applies to, what Spyral originally proposed and what your team kept instead, and how many times it has been confirmed. That line is usually enough to decide whether a rule deserves to stay.
The four actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Promote | Moves a rule to Active. Spyral starts applying it immediately, without waiting for more confirmations. |
| Demote | Moves a rule back to Learning. It stops being applied until it is confirmed again. |
| Retire | Stops the rule for good. Spyral will not suggest it again unless you promote it back. |
| Edit | Replaces the learned value with one you type. The corrected rule becomes Active immediately. |
Use Edit when the rule is right in principle but the value is wrong, for example the right supplier mapped to the wrong account. Use Retire when the rule should never have existed.
The Examples tab
Alongside individual rules, Spyral keeps worked examples of corrections your team has made, and uses them as guidance on how your firm handles a document rather than as a fixed value. Examples confirmed during a review are badged Review-confirmed.
If an example is a poor guide, Suppress it and Spyral stops using it. Restore brings it back. Suppressing does not delete anything; the correction stays in the record.
The stats at the top
- Active rules, how many are being applied right now.
- Learning, how many are being watched but not yet applied.
- Corrections captured, everything recorded, in every status.
- This month, how much your team has taught Spyral recently.
A firm that has just started will see nothing here, with a note saying that lessons show up as your team corrects Spyral's suggestions. That is expected. Firm Memory fills up as you work.
Who can change what has been learned
Everyone on the team can view Firm Memory. Consultants and administrators can promote, demote, retire and edit rules, and suppress or restore examples.
The practical advice
Do your corrections inside Manual review rather than in a bulk edit. Same effort, and the correction counts straight away instead of on the third time.