How to set up pending transactions to match?

Halloran

When I write a check, I enter a transaction in my checking account, and expect that, when the cleared transaction is downloaded from my bank, it will match my pending transaction. Instead, the transaction seems to come in, and I need to update the downloaded transaction, and delete my previously entered transaction.

Is there some trick to entering a transaction as pending so that it matches? This seems a relatively straightforward use case.

DannyB

@Halloran

I write so few checks that I don’t bother with entering a pending transaction in QS so I’ve never paid any attention to this. I would guess that the key would be the Payee info matching what your bank download data for the Payee and with checks, that can be pretty generic, at least in my experience the bank data is simply something like the check # XXX so not much to work with.

You should be able to merge the two transactions by selecting the manually entered pending transaction and the bank downloaded transaction and then click on the merge icon top right of register page. Hopefully the manually entered transaction will overwrite the bank download transaction so you don't have to reenter the specifics.

Someone who works with manually entered transactions routinely or one of the coaches will have a more definitive answer for you, I'm sure.

Flopbot

@Halloran

I suspect this has a lot to do with your bank and how checks clear it.

For example, one of my banks clears like this so Simplifi can’t match up “McDonalds” or “Walmart” or something like that as a second data point. All Simplifi has to go off of is the amount and if it’s $100, that could be an exceedingly common amount.

I’m not sure the best solution here for Simplifi when matching to checks.

Depending on how tight your finances are, you would likely want the check to appear in the register as a pending transaction while you’re waiting on the other party to cash it. This way, it will show up on the Projected Balance chart for your checking account. I find that the vast majority of my checks (maybe all?) need to be matched like @DannyB suggested.

Note that for my bank, not even the check # cleared correctly…