Issues with new chase connection type

RobWilk

My chase connection was “upgraded” and it’s evident the last two days:
 -it’s taking the current balance at the bank, which includes pending
 - so I switched yesterday morning to balance with pending, gave it time to correct,
-then not downloading pending transactions (so manual transactions aren’t matched and are double deducted)

this was not an issue with prior connection type

i suspect I can hand clear these transactions to fix the balances.  Edit: confirmed

if you need me to test anything, this account might not have transactions for a month.

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk,

Thank you for taking the time to report this to the Community, although I'm sorry to hear that you're seeing some issues with the new Chase connection in Simplifi.

It sounds like there may be some confusion on the 'balance with pending' feature. If the balance that's being sent in by the bank already includes pending transactions, you'd want to disable the 'balance with pending' option in Simplifi so Simplifi doesn't double count them. More details on this can be found here. 

With that said, if you've determined that Chase is providing a balance that includes pending transactions, I'd suggest disabling the 'balance with pending' option and then waiting for new transactions to download to see if things are working properly once again.

Please let us know how it goes!

-Coach Natalie

SRC54

I downloaded pending payments today and although Simplifi is supposed to count them, it keeps the balance at 0.00, which is what the balance from Chase says since none have gone through yet.  This just started for me.  @Coach Natalie

But if I delete the pending charges that downloaded and enter them manually, Simplifi correctly computes the balance with pending.  Weird.

I just went to Quicken and downloaded my Online balance there, and it is doing the opposite in Quicken.  It has my balance at $115.09, which is the pending amount, which through off auto-reconcile, so I turned it off.  

Curiouser and Curiouser.

SRC54

@Coach Natalie
Quicken community reports that there is a problem with the new "improved" Chase Connection as it is including Pending Charges in the balance, and they are working on it.  In Quicken, I just went back to Direct Connect although this option will end sometime soon and Quicken nags me to change it.

  In Simplifi, it is just maddening.  One charge came through today.  So I am back to adding balance adjustments as I still have to do once or twice a week with my manual accounts.  

There never seems to be anything simple ever with Simplifi.

RobWilk

@Coach Natalie - - Happy Labor Day (I suspect you won't see this until tomorrow at earliest, though)...

I tried leaving "balance with pending" unchecked in account settings, as was suggested, but the problem persisted - I had to mark transactions as 'cleared' to get the right balance.  Now I'm going to try it the other way.  

It seems to imply (see below) that you check that box if your pending transactions are already subtracted (though it could just as easily say already added, in the case of deposits, 'already applied to the bank balance' may be a better way of wording it).  If I remember i'll come back here when i find out if this worked, but in general transactions are "relatively rare" on this account. 

RobWilk

Okay,

1. I tried the checkmark as above.
2. It definitely updated the "base balance" (AFTER I made that change and AFTER these pending transactions below) from the bank which includes pending, but it did not match any pending transactions to bank transactions (transaction details do not show 'appears on statement as').
3. The result is the problem is the same, i need to manually "clear" these transactions to indicate to simplify that they are included in the bank balance

Here's a specific example:
Bank Balance:


Simplifi Balance:


Difference:



Which also happens to be the sum of the current uncleared pending transactions:



Now if i go ahead and manually clear them right now, simplifi shows the right balance:

(Again, the chase balance includes the pending transactions which were initiated on  the chase website.)

@Coach Natalie - I think we have a bug in the new connection type.  There's no way to go back at this time.   The bug SPECIFICALLY is that it's not downloading pending transactions so it cannot identify which transactions are included in balance regardless of whether 'balance with pending' is checked.

-Rob

Edit: The next morning this is what it showed (and then i flipped off the checkmark on 'balance with pending'), after all the transactions were now matched with bank transactions:


Again, that should be $81.79.  

The difference is $67.31 which is the sum of the current pending transactions on the bank website.

But i've now tried it with and without 'balance with pending' checked, and neither work for chase right now, at least on the day of the pending transactions, possibly because it doesn't download them until the next day.

-Rob

RobWilk

In a separate message, I will summarize the above giant example message, by saying:

-It's possible 'balance with pending' should be 'unchecked' but even still there are issues.
-On the day pending transactions are made, the manual 'pending' transactions are not matched as bank pending transactions until the next day - this may be the problem
-That means, at minimum, on the day the pending transactions are made, the 'bank balance' reflects the pending transactions, but simplify has no knowledge which transactions are pending so simplify doesn't know whether to factor the MANUAL transactions into the balance, and gets the wrong balance until those transactions are manually cleared..

RobWilk

Since the new update to chase connection type....

1. Chase bank balance ("base balance") includes pending transactions

2. If I enter manual transactions for transactions pending at the bank, any bank synchronizations will 

       a. have a balance that includes those transactions.

       b. NOT download THAT DAY'S pending transactions until the next day, so simplify does not know those balances are pending.  They are additionally subtracted as manual transactions (they are 'double deducted').

I tried this with and without the balance with pending checked.  It doesn't seem to work either way.  It's evident from today's balance that unchecked "should" be the right way, but the problem remains the same (I've been dealing with this over the past month, this is not a "it just started happening" thing).

At least one other user is saying there's an issue with the new chase connection.

-Rob

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk & @SRC54,

Thank you for reporting this issue to the Community!

Although Quicken is also experiencing an issue with the balance including pending transactions, it's a little bit different from what Simplifi is seeing since Simplifi is designed to download pending transactions and Quicken is not.  

With that said, it is my understanding that before the Chase migration, the balance we received from Chase did not include pending transactions, even though these transactions were being downloaded. Since Simplifi is designed to deduct pending transactions from the balance, and since those pending transactions downloaded, the balance would match what was actually available in the Chase account. 

However, it appears that Chase is now including pending transactions when sending in the balance post-migration, so essentially Simplifi is double-counting them. A change was made just last night to where connected Chase accounts will always use the bank balance instead of the balance with pending. With this change, it won't matter what's selected for the 'balance with pending' option, as we will now always use the bank balance. 

To me, this makes sense with what's been reported here, and I think the issue is that the pending transactions aren't being downloaded until the next day, which is causing the difference in balance. Does that sound right?

-Coach Natalie

RobWilk

As per "Does that sound right," yes that matches what i've been seeing.

However, today the balance is still not right -- that is, it's not the bank balance, it's the bank balance PLUS the pending transactions AT the bank.  I am willing to give it a few days to correct on its own, though, perhaps after those transactions officially clear.

SRC54

@RobWik @Coach Natalie

Well, I am seeing what Rob sees.  My bank balance is -26.35 with a pending 26.35 charge which comes out to 0.00, which is what Simplifi shows today, which is correct and the way I expect it to work.

I don't want Simplifi to show the bank balance without pending as then I will think I owe money or haven't paid.  I need it to show my balance with pending!

I hope this is what they have gone back to doing.  I sure hope that whatever it does that I can put in a balance adjustment as necessary, which will be taken into account on the balance.

RobWilk

I think on a credit card, pending is not typically included in the bank balance, whereas with checking/savings pending is more likely to be included.  Which is why 'per bank' as opposed to 'per account' may be wrong on 'balance with pending'.

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk & @Clark,

For all accounts, Simplifi is designed to deduct pending transactions from the balance that is sent in by the bank. Most banks typically send in a balance that does not include pending transactions, so Simplifi will automatically deduct them, whether they're downloaded or manually entered. As long as the status is 'Pending', it'll be deducted. 

However, some banks send in a balance that does include pending transactions, and this was causing pending transactions to be double-counted. This is where the 'balance with pending' option comes in. Using this feature will prevent Simplifi from deducting pending transactions from the balance sent in by the bank. You may do so for all of your accounts by selecting "Bank Balance" from the three-dot menu at the top of the Accounts List, or you may do so for an individual account by selecting the checkbox for 'Balance with Pending' when editing an account under Settings>Accounts.

Personally, I find the verbiage used in Simplifi for this feature to be somewhat confusing, and it also differs between using the feature for all of your accounts versus just one account. However, there should be a description and/or tooltip for each location, and you may also find more details here. 

When it comes to Chase specifically, after the migration occurred, the balance sent in by Chase included pending transactions, which resulted in Simplifi double-counting them. The Team fixed this on the back end so that we always receive the bank balance for Chase accounts instead. That way, if you have pending transactions, they'll be deducted from the bank balance and not the balance with pending. 

Let's do this -- I'd like for you both to provide me with a few bits of information, and I will then confer with my Team to see if we can figure out what's going on. 

1. The current balance for your Chase account in Simplifi.
2. The current balance for your Chase account on Chase's website.
3. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed in your Chase account in Simplifi, whether downloaded or manually entered.
4. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed on Chase's website.
   
5. The name of the account in question, as it appears in Simplifi. 

Screenshots of this information would be wonderful to have as well. You can DM me the information if you'd like to keep it private.

-Coach Natalie

RobWilk

I don't have any pending transactions right now, so my balances and everything match perfect.  I could force a pending transaction right now, but simplify wouldn't sync it again until hours later.

BTW: I don't know what channel (it was some local broadcast oldies movies channel) we had on TV last night, but I saw for the first time a Simplifi TV Ad on it.

SRC54

"When it comes to Chase specifically, after the migration occurred, the balance sent in by Chase included pending transactions, which resulted in Simplifi double-counting them. The Team fixed this on the back end so that we always receive the bank balance for Chase accounts instead. That way, if you have pending transactions, they'll be deducted from the bank balance and not the balance with pending. "

@Coach Natalie

So if I am reading this right, it means that we are now getting the true bank balance with Chase without pending so that our pending charges will be subtracted to show the balance correctly?

This is what mine is showing as of today, so it seems correct. 

Coach Natalie

That is correct, @SRC54.

However, I think the other question in this post is the delay in pending transactions downloading. Since we're grabbing the bank balance from Chase, we want to be sure that pending transactions are downloading as expected so that you have an accurate representation of your true balance. 

It sounds like things look correct as of right now for both you and @RobWilk, but please let me know if this changes for either of you or if you see any issues with pending transactions downloading from Chase.

-Coach Natalie

SRC54

@Coach Natalie

Well, I knew it was too good to be true.  Now it shows me with a 26.99 balance.  Tomorrow when the pending charge clears, it will be right.  But this simply won't do.  Simplifi MUST show accurate balances or it doesn't simplifi my life, it complicates it.  You must fix this so it is accurate even if that means telling Chase to take a hike.

It was bad enough when 1-2 of my manual accounts are wrong once or twice a week but now Chase too.  This simply cannot be borne.

Coach Natalie

I'm sorry to hear that you're seeing an issue with the balance now that you have a pending charge, @SRC54.

As mentioned above, we'll need the following information in order to investigate further:

1. The current balance for your Chase account in Simplifi.
2. The current balance for your Chase account on Chase's website.
3. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed in your Chase account in Simplifi, whether downloaded or manually entered.
4. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed on Chase's website.
   
5. The name of the account in question, as it appears in Simplifi. 

Screenshots of this information would be wonderful to have as well. You can DM me the information if you'd like to keep it private.

-Coach Natalie

SRC54

Oh, it's correct today since the 26.99 charge cleared and it is now at 0.00.  I am beginning to think that downloading transactions is not worth it.

AmEx insists on sending me a text and getting a code several times a day.
Manual accounts with transfers from Connected accounts have wrong balance for 24 hours all the time.
Capital One updates balance without clearing the charges  until the next download.

Simplifi should be renamed Complicate.  I have to keep up with the true balance in my head.

But thanks @Coach Natalie.  Maybe Chase will fix it sometime.  I have suspended using their credit card for the timebeing.

RobWilk

If it helps, About 1PM today I did a manual ('pending') transaction (just about $5) from Chase Checking to another credit card ..  I really did it just to test it because i want this to work..  As of 4PM the balance is still correct in Simplifi --- but I have my doubts that it did a bank sync in the last 3 hours after I entered that.  It's after the bank sync (when there are pending transactions) that the problems with balance typically set in.  If problems show themselves I will post an update.   And I will  go through that list of screenshots/questions listed above if there are  problems.

Edit: as of 10:40pm the balance is still right.  I'd say it's fixed for checking accounts at least.

RobWilk

Okay, the Chase connection is still giving me at least one problem.  Specifically, today I had a Direct Deposit, and it updated the balance to a balance including the direct deposit, but it did not download the transaction itself.  This meant the Cash Flow Forecast is now doubling that direct deposit.

As per the requested info:

1. The current balance for your Chase account in Simplifi.
   
   $2141.33
   
   
2. The current balance for your Chase account on Chase's website.
   
   Also $2141.33
   
   
3. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed in your Chase account in Simplifi, whether downloaded or manually entered
   
   None pending, at least one 'upcoming' not enetered
   
   
4. The Date, Payee, and Amount of any pending transactions that are displayed on Chase's website.
   
   9/21 SSA (amount will be sent by direct message as it is a security concern and can be used to help authenticate me to social security)
   
   
5. The name of the account in question, as it appears in Simplifi. 
   
   TOTAL CHECKING

I have manually fixed this by (1) entering the 'upcoming transaction' which matches the bank's pending transaction, (2) linking it to the upcoming transaction, (3) marking it 'cleared'.  This is not ideal, but i know how to get the right balance with effort.

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk,

Thank you for providing the requested information!

When it comes to pending transactions, these do take 4-6 hours to download into Simplifi from the time they appeared on the bank's website. So it may be that you need to allow a bit more time for the transaction to download.

However, when it comes to the balance, does the balance on Chase's website include the pending transaction? If so, is this the same balance you saw in Simplifi before manually entering the transaction? When you manually entered the transaction, was it then double-counted in the balance displayed in Simplifi? If so, did that become resolved once marking the manual transaction as cleared? 

Also, although it is my understanding that the 'balance with pending' feature no longer applies to Chase accounts, I'd like to confirm whether you have this feature enabled for the account. You can determine this by navigating to Settings>Accounts and then editing the account in question. 

Please let us know, thank you!

-Coach Natalie

RobWilk

"ever, when it comes to the balance, does the balance on Chase's website include the pending transaction? "

Yes

" is this the same balance you saw in Simplifi before manually entering the transaction?"

Yes

"When you manually entered the transaction, was it then double-counted in the balance displayed in Simplifi? If so, did that become resolved once marking the manual transaction as cleared? "

Yes and Yes - and once it was linked  the 'forecast' was right too because it was no longer adding the "scheduled deposit" on top of it being in existing balance.

And finally, i looked, "Balance with Pending" is not checked for that account.

I will not have another direct deposit on this account to test again for about a month (4-5 weeks).

RobWilk

Additional info: Later in the day, the balance "corrected" leaving me with a negative balance.   So i deleted my forced-cleared transaction and re-entered it as pending.  Now the balance is right again.

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk,

Thanks for posting back!

It looks like you have a couple of pending transactions for your Chase account that are now showing from our end, so they should download into Simplifi upon your next successful refresh. Can you confirm for me, please? Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the balance "corrected" later in the day. I was under the impression that the balance was correct to begin with, and the issue is that a pending transaction was missing and/or that the balance was including a pending transaction that did not download.

Let's do this -- I'd like to get this in front of my Team to investigate, however, I need to gather a timeline and examples from you. I've gathered that you had a pending Social Security deposit transaction this morning that did not download into Simplifi, but that was being included in the balance. This caused your Projected Cash Flow to be incorrect because the balance was including the pending transaction, but was still also including the Reminder that the missing transaction would be linked to. 

To correct this, you manually entered the transaction as pending, which caused the balance to be incorrect for the account in Simplifi as it was double counting the pending transaction. You then cleared the pending transaction, which corrected the balance to match what Chase shows on their website, and you were also able to link that manual transaction to the Reminder, which cleared up the inaccuracy on Projected Cash Flow.

What happened after this point? Please fill in the rest of the timeline so I can share the specifics with my Team. Also, is there another pending transaction on your Chase account at this point? If so, please provide the details of this transaction (Date, Payee, and Amount) so I can include it as an additional example. 

Finally, I will need to have you submit feedback so can we review your log files. You may do so by following these steps: 

1. Log into the Simplifi Web App.

2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
   

3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback.
   

4. Leave all boxes checked and click Send. 

Thanks in advance!

-Coach Natalie

RobWilk

>>   <- my comments all have this in front

It looks like you have a couple of pending transactions for your Chase account that are now showing from our end, so they should download into Simplifi upon your next successful refresh. Can you confirm for me, please? 

>>> 2 pending transactions should have downloaded (one confirmed): One was about $95 and the other was the SSA deposit (there were also 2 manual transactions separately). 
>>The downloaded pending transaction for SSA may have been matched AND THEN DELETED BY ME because it matched to a manually cleared transaction which i had to recreate as pending in order to get the balance correct again.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the balance "corrected" later in the day. I was under the impression that the balance was correct to begin with, and the issue is that a pending transaction was missing and/or that the balance was including a pending transaction that did not download.

>>The balance was "correct" but the cash flow forecast was DOUBLING the forecasted balance for today.  If I manually entered a transaction to clear the upcoming transaction, the balance was then doubled.  If I cleared the manual transaction, the balance was again right.  By corrected, the balance went negative, as in the 'bank balance' (before pending) now reflected yesterday's end balance minus today's transactions (which was negative $250.70 from memory) because it now didn't include today's deposit (which was manually cleared and thereby not "added" to the bank balance).  Recreating it as pending meant the right bank balance plus the hand created pending manual deposit gave me the actual balance that was fully right again.

Let's do this -- I'd like to get this in front of my Team to investigate, however, I need to gather a timeline and examples from you. I've gathered that you had a pending Social Security deposit transaction this morning that did not download into Simplifi, but that was being included in the balance.

>>this much is correct so far.

This caused your Projected Cash Flow to be incorrect because the balance was including the pending transaction, but was still also including the Reminder that the missing transaction would be linked to. 

>> Perfect, yes.

To correct this, you manually entered the transaction as pending, which caused the balance to be incorrect for the account in Simplifi as it was double counting the pending transaction. You then cleared the pending transaction, which corrected the balance to match what Chase shows on their website, and you were also able to link that manual transaction to the Reminder, which cleared up the inaccuracy on Projected Cash Flow.

>>Actually, it was better than the balance on chase website, because simplifi's balance included manual transactions which the chase website didn't know about (just 2 transactions).

What happened after this point? Please fill in the rest of the timeline so I can share the specifics with my Team.

>> 1.  About 2:06pm I logged in, and the balance on chase account went to $-250.70 (from memory)
>> 2. This was because it was no longer including the "hand-cleared" pending transaction mentioned above in the balance.  the social security deposit.
>> 3. So I deleted the hand cleared transaction
>> 4. And I created a new pending transaction for the social security deposit.
>> 5. And now the balance is right again.

>>Yes, I'm jumping thru a lot of hoops to get the right balance, which i'm sure complicates this explanation.

Also, is there another pending transaction on your Chase account at this point? If so, please provide the details of this transaction (Date, Payee, and Amount) so I can include it as an additional example. 

>> Not on chase account on chase website.  But in simplify: manual transactions: - Geico $68.21 and PayPal $108.32.

Finally, I will need to have you submit feedback so can we review your log files. You may do so by following these steps: 

1. Log into the Simplifi Web App.

2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
   

3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback.
   

4. Leave all boxes checked and click Send. 

Thanks in advance!
>>Done 

-Coach Natalie

RobWilk

By the way, I totally understood that "leaving the incorrect data" (which seemed to self-correct sometime between 8am and 2:07pm ET) and waiting for support to look at it would have been easier for your side to see-- but for me, this is my financial data, and it's a higher priority for me to have an accurate picture than it is to help debug software...  I'm all for helping, because that makes this less likely to be difficult in the future, but priority goes to having accurate numbers.

RobWilk

You mentioned simplify had the choice of two balances, one was essentially the 'current' balance the bank had, and the other was the 'bank' balance which is based on end of previous day (without current pending).  Is it possible that under -some- circumstances/conditions it is still pulling the 'current' rather than 'bank' balance?  That appears to be what is going on.

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk,

Thank you for providing the requested information!

Although what you mentioned is possible when it comes to the balance options, I did go ahead and get this escalated to my Team so they can research and give us a definitive answer. I'll let you know as soon as I hear back.

-Coach Natalie

CTP-4518

RobWilk

I received a small deposit for proceeds for my App --

(My next month proceeds should be 2-3 times that, but still low, I'm not doing any marketing at all on it)

But here's the issue:
The chase balance includes that transaction:

(Yes, savings has at least a little more money than that, and credit cards are zero balance)

But the point, Simplifi is, at least today, doubling the deposit, or adding it to the above balance:

It lists the deposit as pending and adds it to the above bank listed balance which includes it:

I manually entered the above with payee name BASED ON the previous deposit from same.

Note $347.38 + $4.14= $351.52 -- but again, $347.38 includes the $4.14 already I believe.


"present balance" should always include pending transacitons, where 'available balance' may or may not.

-Rob

RobWilk

Once SimpliFi Downloaded and matched the bank transaction (and it was no longer a manual transaction) the balance corrected.