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Ability to have pending transactions be automatically set to cleared after a set number of days

Dick_Davis

With the downloading of transactions from a financial institution, these transactions are typically being marked as “pending” in this version. A program change of having these transactions to be marked cleared after a specified number of days. The user should be able to set the number of days as their choice, such as five (5) calendar days. This program change would benefit the user as avoiding a long, lengthy list of pending that has to be cleared individually.

(edited title for clarity)

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Transactions

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Comments

DryHeat

@Dick_Davis

With the downloading of transaction from a financial institution, these transactions are typically being marked as “pending” in this version.

In my accounts, a downloaded transaction is only marked as Pending if it is in a "pending" state at the financial institution. When it clears at the financial institution, and a refresh occurs in Simplifi, it is automatically marked Cleared in Simplifi.

I think you are saying that your transactions always download as Pending (even if they are not actually "pending" at the institution) and then remain Pending (even when their state changes at the institution)? Is that right?

Or do you just not want to wait until the institution clears them?

QBP Version: 6.32.0 (68614/d519718a68)

EL1234

I wouldn't want this. I don't want it marked as cleared until it actually clears, and I find that I rarely have to do it by myself. (More often than that, but still rare, I end up with a dupe of pending and cleared transactions and I delete the pending one. If it auto-cleared that would definitely not be what I want!)

Coach Natalie

@Dick_Davis, thanks for posting your suggestion to the Community!

I have converted this to an Idea post so other users can vote for it and our product team can review it. Our FAQ here has more details on how Idea posts work:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community

I hope this helps!

Dick_Davis

@DryHeat thank you for your response. You are correct, from what I have experienced, the transactions that are not existing are downloaded as “Pending.” However, Simplifi is not consistent in marking them cleared as this is a “got it done” and “something happened” as it is left as pending. I jus cleared more than 30 transactions since May 1st that were in a pending status and the majority had always been reconciled with the statements. Thus, the program enhancement to allow the user to set a number of calendar days to mark as "cleared" from a "pending" status.

Dick_Davis

it can be a user setting.

DryHeat

@Dick_Davis

I'm trying to understand what you are describing. Bear with me…

the transactions that are not existing are downloaded as “Pending.”

Does this mean that only transactions that are not cleared at the bank are downloaded as pending or that all transactions not yet in Simplifi are downloaded as pending (whether they are cleared at the bank or not)? Or something else?

However, Simplifi is not consistent in marking them cleared as this is a “got it done” and “something happened” as it is left as pending.

I don't understand what the bold text means. The way the process is supposed to work is that if a transaction is downloaded in a pending state, then later downloaded in a cleared state, you end up with just one transaction marked as cleared. Is that not happening?

the majority had always been reconciled with the statements.

I don't understand what reconciling transactions with your statements has to do with them being marked cleared.

Are you saying you mark them cleared yourself when you reconcile? If so, then why are there so many left pending? Are they ones you could not reconcile for some reason?

Dick_Davis

That is never an issue as trying to understand without talking is a challenge always. A the way and method of one person, most likely will spawn a change in another’s process and practice.

What I am saying in that there are three ways to get transactions into Simplifi – (1) enter manually, (2) download, and (3) import. As of right now, I use the enter manually with a status of “pending” or if the account is a manual account, I enter these with the “cleared” status.

When there are transactions such as credit cards, these are entered manually with the pending status. When the bank or credit card company processes their pending, then the transaction will be downloaded with the message of or similar “Appears on your…” to show that the transaction has been posted to by the bank or credit card company. If there are pending transactions in the bank or credit card company, these are not downloaded until they are posted. Thus, the manually entered transaction will not the message “Appears on your…” until the posted transaction is downloaded.

When there are transactions that are not recorded in Simplifi but downloaded these posted transactions will come down with the status of “cleared”. Which is not a problem and carries the “cleared” status.

There are times when the following happens, frequently enough of prompt this request.

When an manually entered transaction is matched with a downloaded transaction in Simplifi, for the majority of the time the two transactions are matched and the status is changed from “pending” to “cleared” – this is not an issue.
More frequently than not, with a several of my banks and credit card companies, the manually enter and the downloaded transaction is matched but the status is not changed as it is left pending. (There is another thread on this subject regarding pending and cleared transactions.)

The request for possible user setting to the number of days is for the second bullet. In order to keep the data clean and current, the user must filter for a pending status or use a flag arrangement as I do. I set all transactions that have not been reconciled with the statement to a violet flag. Then when the transaction is reconciled with the statement, then flag is changed to green. This method has proven to be effective, efficient and keeps the data in current state. Thus the request for having a user setting to mark pending transactions after a user specified number of days to the cleared status.

If you review the above and there are other questions or clarifications, then let me know and I will address each.

DryHeat

That's a lot of text to process, but I think you are saying the following. Correct me if I'm getting this wrong.

You enter most of your transactions manually, in a pending state.
Your banks and credit cards never download pending transactions. (Some of mine do, some don't.)
A downloaded transaction for which there is no matching manual transaction appears as a cleared transaction. (This surprises me, because when you said earlier that "transactions that are not existing are downloaded as Pending.” I took that to mean the opposite of what you are saying here. )
Usually, the downloaded cleared transaction and manually entered pending transaction are "matched" and you end up with a single cleared transaction.

So far, so good… BUT…

5. Sometimes the manual pending and the downloaded cleared transactions are matched, but the status remains pending.

Observations:

#1 through #4 look like normal behavior to me. But #5 does not. The status should change to cleared. (Unless the bank is, unbeknowst to you, actually downloading a pending transaction. Like I said, some of mine do that.)

@SRC54 has more experience than I do with the process as I seldom enter manual transactions. I think he has written before about how the change to cleared status sometimes fails. He may have a better idea of why that is happening and if there is a way to avoid it.

Making the change you have requested, if it happens, will probably take a while. But if you can figure out why #5 is happening and put a stop to it, that should solve most of your problem.

SRC54

@DryHeat has answered you pretty well. It is true I do enter transactions manually more often than some for connected accounts, but I usually try to let them download since my main checking account will download pending transactions. I then split them and mark them reviewed.

But when they clear they almost always match up just fine. I've never had one match and stay pending. My bank can take two days to clear some debit card transactions, and sometimes I will end up with a duplicate pending, and, if I cannot merge them, I delete the second one. But next day the remaining pending gets cleared no problem.

So I agree with Dryheat on #1-4 that all that looks normal, but I haven't had the #5 problem at all.

Finally, I think it is very unlikely that Simplifi will make a change to automatically clear pending transactions without its downloading that way. Additionally, I doubt you'll get many votes for this. (Don't feel bad; I never get many votes either 😁).

Perhaps, you could write a request to make it easier to manually clear these transactions once you are sure they have actually cleared.

Sorry I am not of help.

Edit: I see that now we can see who votes things up or down. So much for secret ballot. I voted down for now but I have been known to change my vote. 😁

EL1234

I do see the advantage of being able to bulk mark transaction status to Cleared. That doesn't seem possible yet.

SRC54

The problem with marking a downloaded transaction cleared is that you cannot then turn around and make it pending again. If we are going to have this at the user discretion, then we need that capability as well in case of error. We have that ability in manual accounts, but connected accounts in Simplifi just aren't designed that way. But I would be fine with it too.

Edited: to make my post clearer.