Does anyone know how pending transactions get dealt with on exported statements, where either the amount changes from the auth’d amount (like pay-at-pump), or where the auth expires (like card checks)?
For example, let’s say I have £100. I add my debit card to my Amazon account on 31st January, and a £1 pre-auth comes off. The end balance on my January statement is £99 (albeit with the £1 transaction showing as pending).
A week later, the £1 pre-auth drops off, and my balance shows as £100 again. The starting balance on my February statement now shows as £100, because the £1 charge is as if it never existed, and therefore the statement balances aren’t concurrent.
Is this how it works? Or does the £1 charge stand, and then a second transaction is added later to say “Reversal of pending transaction” or something similar?
In the case of PayPal card checks - where you add a (Monzo) card to your PayPal account as a payment source - the £1.00 ‘taken’ does show as a transaction in the feed. This also affects the account balance. Then 2-3 days later, it simply disappears from the feed and the balance increases by the £1.00 amount.
If you only use Monzo to track finances you’d probably never notice this behaviour. If you also use external tracking, it seems a strange process.
Indeed, but I’m more thinking around the interaction with statements. If the authorisation and subsequent removal span two statement periods, the statement ending and starting balances end up not matching up.
Yes, I get that, sorry if I’m not explaining what I mean very well.
If a pending transaction is there at the end of the month, when the monthly statement is produced, it affects the statement end balance.
Then, when we’re in the next month, that pending transaction disappears, and the starting balance of the new statement doesn’t match the end balance of the prior month’s one.
So I just took a look at my September statement, I had a TFL transaction that had a £0.10 refund (or active card check, not super sure…)
On my app, the transaction doesn’t say Pending, but in the September Statement it does
I have a few transactions from travelling abroad - that I think are card check authorisations that later get refunded - all of these show as “Pending” in the app and on statement - so I see the initial say £1 taken, and then later credited.
So I think this is closest to how it works - the transaction, and it’s ‘return’ are both listed, as Pending transactions in statement (But without anything highlighting it’s return).
Judging by the TFL example I have, I think that the statements are an accurate reflection of the account when they are made available, and wouldn’t be updated later in time (otherwise I think my TFL transaction should not show as pending).
