who performs payee unscrambling -- bank or Simplifi?

noone

I have a weird problem — about half of transactions in (only) one of my accounts are scrambled and look like this:

24692165v3389y73h Prime Video *q842t7bh3 888-802-3080 Wa

the same transaction while it was pending (i.e. before it got cleared) had payee unscrambled:

Prime Video Tvod 888-802-3080 Wa

Question — who performs payee unscrambling? Is it bank or Simplifi?

Coach Natalie

Hello @noone,

Thanks for posting your inquiry to the Community!

It is my understanding that the bank sends in payee names a certain way, and then Simplifi uses some built-in logic to simplify the names. I'm not sure if what you're seeing is being caused by the bank or Simplifi, but it's possible that it's the bank since it's just occurring with one of your accounts.

With that said, we can certainly take a closer look if you'd like. First, I'd suggest opening the Transaction Detail window for the transaction in question and taking a look at the "Appears on your statement as…" info to see if it matches the Payee Name or not. Also, do you have any other accounts with this same bank in Simplifi?

Please let us know how it goes!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello @noone,

Thanks for posting back!

To clarify, is the issue with the Payee Name only occurring on downloaded 'cleared' transactions that are a duplicate of a 'pending' transaction? When it comes to duplicate transactions, if one is pending and one is cleared and they both have the same "Appears on your statement as…" info, then Simplifi didn't properly match the "cleared" version to the "pending" version of the transaction, and you'd want to just delete one of the duplicates.

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4901071-how-to-resolve-duplicate-transactions

If this is the case, I'd suggest deleting the duplicate 'cleared' transaction since it has a bad Payee Name, isn't the one that's been linked to a Recurring Reminder, etc., and then manually clearing the 'pending' version of the transaction since it has all of the correct data.

-Coach Natalie

noone

Yes, I have two accounts with given bank (Amegy) — issue happens with credit card account only. This account has another issue — each pending transaction stays alive for exactly 7 days, even if it is shown as cleared in my banking. So, I end up with a cleared clone — identical to it's pending counterpart in every way with exception of cleared flag (and, in ~70% of cases, scrambled payee). Both transactions have identical "Appears on your statement as…" field.

If unscrambling happens on Simplifi side — it is weird that it can unscramble payee of each and every pending transaction, but can't do the same for cleared ones.

It is also weird that my bank can handle clearing (and removes transaction from pending category), usually after 1/2 days and Simplifi can't.

Also, pending transaction simply disappears from Simplifi after 7 days — taking additional info with it (such as "recurring bill" link or manual changes). None of this additional info gets moved to it's cleared clone.

Note: I already reported both of these issues via Help Center, but after few days it got closed with some recondite explanation which tries to blame the bank. It didn't make sense for me (and I am a developer).

noone

That is my primary credit card — it is too impractical for me to go and do this for every transaction. Besides, it still doesn't explain why Simplifi can't unscramble payee on most cleared transactions. (Please, don't suggest I go and unscramble them manually from now on :))

Coach Natalie

Hello @noone,

Unfortunately, for duplicate transactions that meet the criteria I outlined above, the solution is to delete one of the duplicates; we won't escalate these instances. If you want to keep the 'cleared' transaction instead of the 'pending' one, we can certainly look more into the issue with the Payee Name. However, since the 'cleared' transaction isn't linked to the Reminder or anything along those lines, some manual intervention would still most likely be needed.

You can also try resetting the connection for the bank to see if you can obtain a better experience. The steps to do so can be found here. If you decide to give this a try, make sure to carefully link the accounts found to your existing Simplifi accounts so you don't end up with duplicate accounts: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4959544-how-to-link-accounts

-Coach Natalie

noone

for duplicate transactions that meet the criteria I outlined above, the solution is …

This is not going to work if every transaction in given account meets this criteria. With this approach I might as well use an excel spreadsheet instead of Simplifi.

RobWilk

You can always use a manual

noone

Yeah, I'll write it on clay tables with a stick

RobWilk

oops =-deleted

RobWilk

That last message may have been in reply to the wrong thread, dangers of writing from phone

Sorry