Display running balance with each entry

OP here

So just to recap… Is this feature going to be available on current accounts when Monzo is public?

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It’s not there on the preview of the current account but only :monzo: will be able to tell us if they’re going to make it so.

Having used the CA for a few weeks now, I do really think the running balance is needed.

Why? Obviously I can see my balance at the top of the screen, but if a few transactions come out of my account in one day, I’ve really no idea if it is completely accurate or if there have been any issues and I have nothing to refer back to. So today as an example £202.87 has left my account as a standing order, but I don’t know what the balance on the account was before that transaction was debited.

I started using the CA on 3 August and apparently I won’t have a graph/pulse feed available until 3 October, so I have absolutely no comparison data or audit trail to check that credits and debits are “adding up” to the right amounts.

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For auditing purposes, it would be great if running balance was displayed - maybe in the transaction logs you can generate (iOS) or request (Android).

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Hopefully my pulse graph will hit my current account on Sunday. I have actually missed it; it’s essential to the :monzo: Monzo experience IMHO.

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Does the pulse graph work well as a running total? All my friends are on android so I’ve never actually seen it work.

Yes, you can scroll along back to previous days and the balance at each transaction is displayed. The feed automatically tracks to the matching transaction too.

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I can provide some clarity about this. We won’t have a running balance “next to each transaction” on the home of the app. This is something we think adds very little new information (most of it is available on the pulse graph anyway) and would take too much room and cognitive load (the balance would compete with the actual transactions amounts).

However, this information will be available for those that want it. You’ll be able to opening the detail view of a transaction and see the full payment cycle for that transaction and, of course, it will also be there when exporting data or generating PDF statements :floppy_disk:

We hope that’s enough for people to audit that everything adds up and get some peace of mind. The rationale here is that, even for those power users that really want to see that all the figures are correct, after a few checks here and there they will eventually trust Monzo is keeping an accurate tally, the same way you trust any other app receipt, etc. Hope it makes sense :slight_smile:

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I appreciate the reasons why this isn’t on, but equally I will keep thinking it’s important to have. Even today, I just had a pre-authorised charge on my card for a click and collect, I went and purchased it myself and the order was cancelled. Company say no charge.

It shows on my Monzo account as two charges. I’ve spoken to customer support who say the original charge is now back in my balance, even if it shows as two charges. But… I don’t know that. I literally am right now thinking “DID I have that much prior to £30 being added back?” I literally have no way of finding out, directly in the app, if this charge has been reversed.

(Don’t get me wrong, the guy who helped (David) has been great but I just have to… trust that it’s there?)

This is absolutely one area that I’ll happily go against the grain and say is not acceptable for a bank that is handling (now) all of my money.

Edit: Turns out the money wasn’t back in my account and I had actually been charged twice. So a massive thumbs up from me now to getting a running balance. Had I not queried this I would be down £30.

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That’s what I meant by “full payment cycle”, you’ll always be able to enter into a transaction and see all the different things that had happened with it and the resultant balance after each of them.

The only difference is that we won’t be surfacing this on the home of the app, it will only be visible one level down. Do you know what I mean?

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Just on this note, maybe it would be nice to enable a “advanced” view that showed more information about the transaction, when you click on it - should a power user desire.
Such as when the transaction was authorised and when it was actually presented etc. etc. Just more info from the API :slight_smile:

If this shows what the balance was when the transaction went through then I have no issue! I don’t care where it is as long as it is in the app and easily seen without a download.

It would have helped in this situation. It’s vital.

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I considered requesting this feature a few days ago, after a Direct debit notification informed me I had insufficient funds - three days before the payment was due. When the payment was eventually taken, it didn’t create a new line item sequentially in my transaction history. Instead, it repopulated the original entry that had been posted three days previously.

This (and I imagine other comparable events) means that if actual transactions aren’t listed in the order they’re debited, some payments may fail some of the time due to insufficient funds, but it will be difficult to work out how much was in the account and why the payment failed.

I therefore feel it would be clearer for customers if the running balance could be displayed (perhaps not all the time - user could potentially swipe to reveal). It would also mean fewer queries into :monzo: 's operational team

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Thanks Justin.

The good news is that, as Hugo’s mentioned in this thread, the running balance is going to be added to the app :slight_smile:

IMG_20170831_212947

If Halifax can do it then anyone can!!

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Looks good :grimacing:

But yes, this is a design decision not a technical challenge :slight_smile:

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Apparently it would ‘take too much room’. :thinking:

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I’m actually struggling to make sense of those numbers with the way they’re displayed, which are the transaction a and which are the balance. I managed it, but only after 45s. I certainly hope we don’t end up with something like that in :monzo:. :wink:

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I don’t like the look of it much but I didn’t struggle to see at all. It’s how most other banks do it so it isn’t anything new.

Like was said, if I can click into a transaction and see how that affected my balance at that particular time it means we have a running balance and that’s good.

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Hugo, Your explanation that it would be there is fine and very welcome… Knowing its definately coming is enough to wait for.

However the final part of this is where I feel the disconnect still exists…

Its not about trusting you, I already ‘trust’ Monzo to correct any mistakes… The visible audit trail must be there so that we can demonstrate, clearly and in detail, if any mistakes have happened, where they happened, and why they happened. Monzo doesnt think that in the history of its lifetime it will never make a mistake, so proof gives facts to base trust on.

The audit trail isnt there to replace trust, the audit trail needs to be there to be ensure that mistakes can be shown and made obvious. Without it the end user has no facts to back up the feeling.

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