Pending transactions with Wells Fargo

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Transactions not downloading from Wells Fargo again.

ForzaBlue

There appears to be some conflicting information on this topic. I just started using Simplifi, and I am not seeing (nor is it accounting for) pending transactions from my Wells Fargo primary checking account. According to Quicken support, Wells Fargo does not report "pending transactions" to 3rd parties. They referred me to this article: http://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/5654045-does-simplifi-download-pending-transactions. So.... evidently, this is not possible, will never work, and we cannot use Simplifi if we have a Wells Fargo checking account. It's a shame really, I like this service, but regardless of who's at fault, it's not very useful without the pending transactions. 

DannyB

Hi @ForzaBlue Welcome to Simplifi!

Sorry about the confusion but you we Wells Fargo customers can use Simplifi.  My primary accounts, 2 checking, 1 savings, and one credit card, are with Wells Fargo and I have no problems with Simplifi.  You're correct that WF doesn't include pending transactions in their downloads but that is not really a problem.  What you can do is go to Settings > Accounts > click on the 3 dots at the right of each of your WF accounts > Edit Account. When the Edit account box opens, clear the the check box next to "Balance with Pending" and that will turn off the pending function in Simplifi for these accounts.

Again, I bank with Wells Fargo and have no problems using Simplifi. 

ForzaBlue

Hi Danny; here's my issue. Having a dashboard of your checking account, that doesn't display, or far more importantly, take into account, pending transactions, is like not having a fuel gauge in your car. You would have no idea how far you could drive.

Similarly, I have no idea how much I can really spend, because there is X amount of dollars not being accounted for in this view. WF sometimes take 3 days to post pending transactions to your account. If you only used Simplfi for an at-a-glance view of your available/spending income, more often than not, it would be incorrect. Or at the very least, it would be unreliable. And what's worse than a financial service or application, that is unreliable? 

I mean am I looney tunes, or does that make this service just about useless for anyone with a WF primary checking account? Because I am finding it to be just that for me, unfortunately.

Doug Hall

@ForzaBlue, you're not looney tunes.  I came from Quicken in which I never had pending transactions with my WF accounts. I finally decided to give up all the control that Quicken gives you to have a more modern solution that doesn't take acts of Congress to keep synced on my phone. 
When I came over to Simplifi, I was very pleasantly surprised that I could see all my account transactions up to date, even pending transactions.  A few short months later, though, it stopped working for Wells Fargo. Even though I only had it for a few months, I really miss it.  To your point, having a financial snapshot that could be days behind isn't nearly as useful as having an updated one.  I still find value in Simplifi, but it would be significantly more value if I could see pending transactions.

@Coach Natalie, as big as Quicken is, do you guys really not have any pull with banks to persuade them to provide this value to their and your customers?

DannyB

@ForzaBlue

I like your gas gauge metaphor!  Back when I was a truck driver there was more than one rig I operated that didn’t have a functioning fuel gauge!  I would fill up at night and knew I had 100 gallons of fuel for the next day which was good for about 350 miles.  My farthest run was right at 300 miles and then I knew it was time to take on fuel again.  Back in those days I didn’t have access to my daily balance at the bank the way we do now, and depended on a handwritten check register to keep track of my balance and then when the monthly statement arrived with all my cancelled checks I’d spend an 30 or 40 minutes double checking all my figures.  I could call the bank to get my balance if I needed to between statements but even that didn’t include any checks I wrote in the previous 24 hours or so.  

I’ve banked with WF for almost 30 years and I have rarely seen more than a 24 hour delay (OK, up to 48 hours for any pending transactions that show up end of banking day on Saturdays or 36 hours if Monday is a bank holiday) from when a pending transaction is cleared at WF and downloaded into Simplifi.  

I suppose one of the reasons I don’t have a problem is because 90% of our spending is via one credit card and another 9% goes on 2 other credit cards.  These cards do download pending transactions and I pay all three off monthly.  A second reason is that my WF accounts end up having very little activity besides the monthly credit card payments and a few bills for billers who charge extra to use credit cards.  A third reason is that I maintain a cushion in our two checking accounts so the one to two day delay is not a real concern.  A third reason is that I am fortunate enough to have a 3 month lead time for our typical monthly expenses, that is to say, this months income won’t actually be spent until 2 months from now.  Finally, I don’t rely on Simplifi to keep close track on what I have available in the bank… I use it to plan and track all income and spending for each month.  

I am aware that my circumstances are different from others.  It very well may be that this decision by WF to not include pending transactions in downloads to financial management apps is a deal breaker for using fin apps.  

Coach Natalie

Hello @ForzaBlue,

Thanks for sharing your feedback regarding pending Wells Fargo transactions with the Community!

Unfortunately, Wells Fargo decided to no longer include pending transactions for third-party software. I'm not sure why they made this decision, however, anyone who'd like to inquire further, such as @Doug Hall, would want to contact the bank directly, as we have no control over this decision. 

With that said, to allow better tracking in Simplifi, you may consider manually entering the transactions as they take place; more details on adding transactions in Simplifi can be found here. Once the transactions clear the bank and download into Simplifi, they should automatically be matched to the manually entered 'pending' version of the transaction, so you won't end up with duplicate transactions. 

Additionally, since Simplifi is designed to deduct pending transactions from the balance reported by the bank, manually entering the pending transactions as 'pending' will give you an accurate reflection of what your true balance is as long as the 'Balance with Pending' feature is enabled for the account. More details on how Simplifi calculates your balance and using the 'Balance with Pending' feature can be found here. 

To provide additional clarity, please keep in mind that if you do not see 'pending' transactions in an account in Simplifi, whether downloaded or manually entered, the 'Balance with Pending' feature will have no impact on the balance. This feature only applies when there are 'pending' transactions in the account. 

Please let us know if you have any questions!

-Coach Natalie