Better to have multiple folders or multiple rules?

I have an inbox that I throw invoices and receipts into.

I have multiple rules on that inbox to rename the file with an invoice date, and sort the renamed file into different folders based on text within the pdf.

It's all sort of grinding to a halt.

With the date , I check if it's a pdf and if the filename includes a date if not move it to a date finder folder, which looks for a date, renames the file and sends it back to the inbox, or to an undated folder if it can't find one.

I then have lots of rules checking for various text to move to the organisation folder.

would it be more efficient to have a 'chain' of folders each with one rule that says if you find this text, leave the file here, if not send it to the next folder, and then have the last folder send any files that didn't match any rules to a misc folder?

It feels like it's easier to check rules on a folder with a few rules, than a folder with many.

Thoughts?

It's a preference thing but breaking things up does make it more manageable and easier to debug should things go wrong.

Thank you, probably would be easier to add a new folder into the chain with a simple new rule set too.

I just accidentally moved 'everything' with a rule that had a bad match!

In terms of checking content is it best to use contains, or contains match? and would it be better to have PDF's OCR'd first?

I have a few with could not import text from errors - is that due to contents contain match?

I had set all this up ages ago, but multiple OS upgrades, Hazel Upgrades etc later I have a lot of files that didn't get sorted, so I fgure time to make it more efficient.

Contains is for specific text. Contains match can do that as well but it is more generalized where you can specify patterns.

I'd need to see the errors to say anything about those.