When performing a bank statement import, show and allow user selection of the “transactions already imported” / “Find duplicates” functionality. In more detail:
Manager should display all the imported bank transactions on one side of the screen and all the existing Manager transactions on the other side of the screen.
Transactions should be matched by Manager with any differences highlighted.
Matching should be done by repeatedly comparing each side, first matching entries where all fields match exactly (date, amount, account, description), then compare the remaining entries matching on less fields (eg “date, amount, account” then “date, amount” then “date, account”, then “amount, account”)
Optionally hiding the more exact matches would be useful.
Showing the difference in running total would also be useful
The resultant display would enable:
The user to much more easily see any differences between Mangers records and the bank records. Thus performing bank reconciliation much more efficiently (in terms of user time).
Transactions not in manager could then be imported and Bank rules created as is currently done. But done within in the context of what is already in Manager, so done more accurately.
PS:
To better understand the side by side comparison approach , this application does it well, clearly doing far more than is appropriate for Manager but does illustrate the basic concepts.
I can’t see how this is required.
Let say you do a Bank Statement Import for the 1st to the 15th of the month.
Then later you do a bank statement import for the 1st to the 30th of the same month.
Why would you want to see (review) all those 1st to 15th transactions again ?
Mmm, sorry about that, I have explained how to program the function but not how to use it.
If you only ever regularly import bank statements and never change amounts then you never need to do bank reconciliation nor do you ever really need to find and exclude previously imported data (just import the new data from the date of the last import). So you are correct if that is your work flow.
However if you actually need to do a bank reconciliation as there is a discrepancy you need to find. Or some of your transactions are entered by other means and you now want to incorporate the remaining transactions. I both of these cases computer assisted correlation of prior entries would be extremely valuable.
This is probably best explained by some examples. Firstly if your work flow is to mostly use imported bank statements then if
An transaction is changed enough for Manager to not recognized it when you do a new import. With the existing facilities a duplicated transaction will be created. With the proposed enhancement the changes would be highlighted so a duplicate transaction would be avoided. If not re-importing would show the duplicate transaction (most easily done by temporarily hiding exact matches mostly leaving an unmatched transaction on the Manager database side).
If you edit a bank transaction when importing to allocate it to various accounts but make an error so the total is wrong. Again with the proposed matching this would be found and shown.
If you combine bank transaction (paid in parts due to bank transfer limits) but make an error, again it would be shown (by a change in the running total and exclusion of all correct transactions)
For users who mostly don’t now import bank statements but reconcile, the benefit should be more evident it you think about what is actually done / take most the time when trying to find an error. Typically I:
Print off a bank statement
Go through Managers transactions crossing off on the print out all that are correct in Manager
Then look at the remaining transactions that are different or not entered or entered twice
Automating all but the last step of this process is going to help a lot.
Based on your three examples, just do a re-import for the particular period (week, month, quarter, six months), then only those transactions without an exact match would be listed as uncategorised, as all the others with an exact match would be automatically hidden. Those mis-matched transactions would then need to be investigated with regards to the original imported transaction. If those uncategorised items have a partially matched transaction within Manager then perhaps they could be separately displayed, referenced.
Then it would be useful to select, based on the bank statement date range, those transactions within Manager, plus any outstanding pending. These could be displayed similar to the bank import screen with tick boxes. As they are matched to the statement and ticked they could be updated (removed from the screen listing), leaving only those that need action either from the screen or the statement.