ADJUSTING IMPORTED FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
The importing process that Budgets get Real uses imports all of your financial transactions correctly in the vast amount of cases. In occasional instances, however, there may be some problem encountered, which requires fixing. Problems that you could encounter include entering the wrong statement, having duplicate or unwanted transactions present or missing some transactions. The facilities exist, in Budgets get Real, to also change the transaction date and to handle problems with cheques. Bank errors are also encountered that need to be resolved.
Importing the wrong statement.
As soon as you realise this has happened, you have to clear the statement using the clear statement button and re-import into the correct account.
You are missing transactions.
Two causes are most likely
- Missing days between batches.
If the balances do not correspond when you attempt to reconcile your account, you may have missed a few days of transactions between your imported batches. This is by far the commonest cause. You need to import the missing transactions and categorise them as for a normal import.
If the transactions are not available electronically, they need to be entered as a manual batch or just using the [+] icon on the transaction register for one or two.
2. Program has over zealously removed a transaction.
The transaction has not been destroyed, it is in the excluded file and can be accessed, included and appropriately categorised. The problem relates to the configuration which is designed to exclude the “Purchase Authorisation” type transactions and needs some modification. To Fix- Go to Excluded file in Display Menu. Click on the transaction to include. The Add Excluded entry to Register window will open. Click on Include as non-Cheque entry and then click Modify.
Duplicate and Unwanted Transactions.
Duplicate transactions occur where one item on your bank statement shows several times. It occurs because you have imported the same transaction several times.
Budgets get Real is designed to eliminate duplicate transactions and does so effectively on 99% of occasions.
Duplicate transactions are encountered when you have imported two date ranges that overlap, and therefore have some contained duplicate transactions. The duplicates are designed to be eliminated but occasional banks report transactions for the same day, in a different order on different imports. Because the balance therefore appears different, the transaction may not be recognised as a duplicate. If this is a problem, the extent of overlapping dates should be minimised in your imports.
Unwanted transactions are real entries on your bank statements that are not finalised or possibly statement notes provided by the bank. A common example is not finalised credit card transactions, commonly designated as “Purchase Authorisation.” The program is set up to eliminate not finalised credit card transactions. If such transactions are inadvertently displayed, they need to be excluded. To fix simply delete as as described below i.e. the same as for duplicates. The configuration needs to be reviewed, since, if properly adjusted, such transactions should be automatically removed.
You exclude Duplicate and Unwanted transactions as follows:
Click on transaction name on transaction register > Change Current Register Entry window will open. Click on Remove from Register Completely to delete transaction. Then click on Modify.
Recovery of Excluded transactions
The program does NOT delete the excluded entries. These are viewable at any time by selecting Excluded from the Display menu. Excluded transactions can be added back at any time if you make a mistake.
Excluded transactions will show when you do a statement reconciliation - so you can easily add back if needed.
Changing transaction dates.
Occasionally banks vary the date of a transaction from paper to electronic statement. To reconcile, you may wish to alter the date to that on the paper statement. This is easily altered by clicking on the relevant date of the transaction, on the transaction register. A screen called Change Current Display Date will open.
Use the arrows to find the date you need and then click modify.
Handy Hint:
This process is also very useful for transactions occurring around the end of the financial year or other reporting period.
Problems with cheques.
Many issues relating to cheques have already been discussed under the section cheques, including stopped cheques and discrepancies in cheque amount.
- If you have entered unpresented cheques, these should be being automatically matched in the import, and removed. The matching is done on the cheque number. If you have entered an unpresented cheque with the wrong number, it will not reconcile properly.
- If such an unpresented cheque is present when displaying cheques, you can change the number to the correct number if the cheque has not been imported yet. This is done by clicking on the cheque to open the window below. You would click on modify after you have altered the number.
- However, if the transaction has already been imported, you cannot enter an un-presented cheque transaction. The only solution is to exclude the un-presented cheque and categorise the imported transaction.
Bank Errors.
On examination of your account, you may find errors made by the bank such as overcharged fees, interest charged twice and incorrect loans debits. You should contact the bank as soon as possible about the error. DO NOT EXCLUDE THE TRANSACTION. Only use exclusion for processing problems, not bank errors. Put a Reminder in the Memo section of the transaction, that the transaction is in dispute.
When the bank adjusts their error in the next statement, import the adjustment and memo the adjustment. If the bank is tardy in correcting, you have a reminder visible which you do not delete until the matter is resolved, to your satisfaction.
Thus your Budgets get Real records are always the same as the bank records; if you ever should be subject to a tax audit, and the only issue can be categorisation of transactions.
