This is my first month using Manager.io live. I typically keep my credit card bank account transactions up to date.
I have entered 18 transactions manually into my Visa bank account. I enter the dates, amounts and vendor name as appears on the receipt. I originally entered them with a status of “Pending” hoping that a later bank account reconciliation would allow me to change the status of posted items to “Cleared”.
I downloaded 20 transactions in QFX format from my credit card website. I use Bank Transactions | Import Bank Statement to load those transactions. Only 1 shows up as “already imported”.
I thought maybe the Pending status was the problem, so I canceled the import, changed all 18 transactions to “Cleared” and repeated the import. Still only 1 match.
What is the matching algorithm? Or how can I improve the matching?
If you are going to enter transactions manually, do not also import them. This results in double transactions. It is one or the other.
Imported transactions will only be assigned to accounts if there are bank rules. See this Guide: Manager Cloud. Matching refers to the bank rule, not to matching an already existing transaction.
Marking the credit card transactions as Pending was the correct thing to do for manual entry. When it shows up on a credit card statement (or online at your credit card issuer), edit that to Cleared. Imported transactions are Cleared by definition, because the card issuer has already processed them.
Ok, then what does this comment mean in Manager Guides →
Note
Manager has the ability to recognize most duplicate transactions, based on type, date, and amount. In the import illustrated above, Manager does not recognize any duplicates and imports all transactions.
That comment refers to the ability of the program to recognize a transaction you are importing as one that already exists in the database. The purpose is primarily to prevent import of transactions that were previously imported, such as when you can customize a date range in your bank’s software for creating the export file and accidentally include dates that you have already exported and imported. (For example, you forget that mid-month you downloaded transactions for the first half, then download the complete month at the end.)
If you are lucky, and the bank lists all transactions on the same dates you did, Manager could find and exclude every transaction you are trying to import. But that almost never happens. You enter a credit card transaction that you make on the 15th of the month. The merchant and its processor take several days to process the charge, which shows up on your credit card statement on the 19th. And since you are recording payments, these are negative amounts in Manager. But your bank probably lists them as positive amounts. So neither dates nor amounts match, and Manager lets the transaction go through during import. Now you have to find and delete half the transactions for the month, or edit dates, change signs, etc.
The bottom line is that bank imports are great when they work with the data you are able to get from your bank. But they always lag the actual transactions and sometimes cannot be made to work because of peculiarities in how banks record and report transactions.