Pending transactions from a bank feed

If you are using a bank feed to import your transactions, you may be able to import pending transactions. In this article, you can find out what pending transactions are and how to deal with them within PocketSmith.

What is a pending transaction?

A pending transaction is a transaction flagged by a bank as not yet confirmed or posted because some of the transaction attributes (merchant, date, amount, etc.) may change in the coming days. 

For example, if a transaction occurs during the weekend, the date of a transaction might be incorrect, or a "friendly" name might be produced for the merchant, until the coming business days when the details can be correctly displayed.

In PocketSmith, pending transactions are indicated with an exclamation mark icon on the Transactions page.

After a few days (generally between one - four days), the pending transaction is removed and replaced with the posted version once the bank confirms the transaction. Once posted, your bank will not make any other changes to the transaction, and it is effectively set in stone. PocketSmith automatically removes the pending icon once a transaction is posted.

Dealing with pending transactions

The categories and edits applied to my transactions have changed

When pending transactions are replaced with posted transactions, PocketSmith does its best to move the category, notes, attachments, and labels over. However, sometimes, this isn’t possible if we can’t find a clear match when the posted transactions arrive. 

Recommendations for pending transactions

• The best way to ensure that your transactions are categorized correctly, regardless of whether you have pending transactions or not, is to use Category Rules and Filters.
• If you find that you are losing the changes you have made to pending transactions, we recommend that you do not edit or categorize transactions while they are pending, and instead wait until your pending transactions have been posted.

Troubleshooting balance discrepancies involving pending transactions

My account balance in PocketSmith doesn't match my bank’s

While a transaction is still pending, you may notice a mismatch between the balance shown in PocketSmith and the balance shown in your own online banking. This is due to how your bank handles pending transactions, and can happen in the following way:

• Your feed balance and your online banking balance may not match. The balance provided by the feed may or may not include pending transactions, separately from whether your online banking portal includes those same pending transactions in its own balance. Since these are set independently by your bank or feed provider, the two can disagree.

Once a pending transaction posts at your bank, it will be included consistently across your feed balance, your online banking, and PocketSmith's imported transactions, and the balances should align again.

Account balance is displayed differently across PocketSmith

While a transaction is still pending, PocketSmith may show different balances for the same account depending on where you look. This comes down to two things: how the bank or feed provider handles pending transactions when delivering them via your feed, and whether a given page, widget, or report uses the running balance or the feed-provided balance.

Some areas of PocketSmith, such as the transaction listing on the Transactions page, Net worth report and Calendar, use the running balance, which is calculated from the transactions actually imported into your account, rather than the balance provided directly by your feed. Because of this, you may notice a discrepancy between the two while a transaction is still pending:

• Your feed balance includes the pending transaction, but PocketSmith hasn't imported it yet. The feed-provided balance will be ahead of PocketSmith's running balance until the transaction is imported.
• Your feed balance doesn't yet include the pending transaction, but PocketSmith has already imported it. PocketSmith's running balance will be ahead of the feed-provided balance until the transaction posts.

Once a pending transaction is posted by your bank, it will be reflected in your bank balance and sent to PocketSmith via your feed, so this discrepancy should resolve itself automatically.

Solution

If either of the issues above is affecting an account, there are a few things you can try:

1. Check whether your feed offers another balance option. Some feeds provide more than one balance option — one that includes pending transactions and one that doesn't. If your feed offers this choice, try switching to the other option to see if it resolves the discrepancy. For details on how to this, see: Change the balance option for an account
2. If your feed only offers a balance without pending transactions included, turn off pending transactions for that feed. This keeps your feed balance and your imported transactions consistent, since neither will include pending transactions. Jump to the next section to learn how to turn pending transactions off.
3. If neither of the above resolves the discrepancy, switch to the calculated closing balance option. This reflects the transactions actually recorded in your PocketSmith account, rather than the balance provided by your feed. For details on how to this, see: Change the balance option for an account

Turn pending transactions from a bank feed connection on or off

You can choose whether or not you'd like pending transactions to be imported from your data connection with the following steps:

1. Head to the Feeds page (Manage > Feeds)
2. Find the feed in the sidebar
3. Click the Settings tab

4. Tick or untick the Pending transactions check box

   
   

   

   
   
5. Click SAVE CHANGES