Reconcile Transaction with a ☑️

The option to reconcile a transaction (tick or mark it off as reconciled) would be really useful. It would be another binary field in the .csv export, but from an in-app user perspective I visualise this as a reconcile function button which toggles on and off, when viewing transactions on the card in question. It would allow you to tick :ballot_box_with_check: or designate with an “R” each transaction as you move through and satisfy yourself that it is correct / squared away. You could then toggle off the function to leave a clear tick or R permanently next to the reconciled transactions. Probably most useful for accountants, people with multiple accounts, high volume transactions or complex pot structures but I would love to see this feature. Multiple functions for it, a flexible tool that could be used in different ways. In particular for non-Direct Debit and non-automatically assigned to pot spending from your account. When I spend something ad hoc, which I want to be paid for out of a pot, I need to manually move the cash from the pot, and then mark the spend transaction as [Exclude From Summary] to prevent it from being offset against budget. But when there is time lapse between spend and moving pot money, or where there are multiple complex movements, which I often have on my Joint account, then it becomes harder to reconcile. This function would make this process of reconciling the budget and pot movements much much easier. Thank you.

If you want it in the sheet export just add a column yourself?

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Hi, I want it in app, I have edited to flesh out the original post to better explain. Not the easiest thing to describe.

I don’t really see the need for it, your account isn’t in error, Monzo doesn’t forget to add things, so there’s never a need to check/reconcile your account.

Really this is already there because anything you want to challenge, you do so when needed, so everything else automatically gets the “R”, but each to their own.

You could also add this as a note to solve it yourself.

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This feels a little like something my grandparents would have been doing in the 70s and 80s - not very Fintech.

Why can’t you assume your feed is correct? Why do you need to manually reconcile?

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Perhaps Correct was a poor choice of words, reconciling an account doesn’t suggest that there is or isn’t any errors, or that anything is missing or not added to Monzo. It is not about fraud detection or challenging the actual transaction, it is about managing complex budget summaries and actual budget spend throughout the month, and ensuring that pot balances are as you want them to be.

Notes are very useful but I think the value of a quick and dirty visual check scan for R’s, for transactions which may need to be reviewed is huge. As an accountant it is an invaluable tool for bank reconciliation. But as I say may be more attractive to people with similarly complex transactions and many pots and accounts. Note I have explained just one scenario this tool could be used for, in reality it is an adaptable tool which can be applied to all sorts of scenarios in which you want to review your historical transactions. Thanks for the feedback.

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Haha, check out Xero, or any cloud based accountancy package and you will find a bank reconciliation function. I gather Xero are exploring AI suggested reconciliations. I’m not sure it could be more fintech…

To answer your question, if you make an ad-hoc payment, which you want to come out of a pot, then you need to manually Exclude From Summary to prevent it from being deducted from your budget summary. If you don’t use budgets this won’t make sense to you. If you do it once or twice it is easy. If you do it dozens of times, across 10 pots, across a personal and a Joint account then you begin to see why it may be useful to have a quick visual reference.

Out of interest do any other banks offer a reconciliation function or would Monzo be the first?

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Right… for business accounts which need bookkeeping. But this is a personal account. I just don’t get the need that’s all. It might be useful for you, but I have never seen it on a personal account in the last decade. I might be wrong.

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I haven’t seen it anywhere else, but can’t say for sure. Another opportunity for Monzo to differentiate itself in the market.

Thinking about it, Monzo goes out of it’s way to do this for you automatically, by automatically withdrawing scheduled payments from a pot of your choice. These are essentially automatically reconciling themselves. This is a just a further step for ad-hoc unplanned, non-DD or Standing Order payments.

So I have questions…

@Indie1978 there’s an assumption, a valid one, that we’re talking about personal expenditure. If that’s right, isn’t this what Trends/the sheets export is for? So you take live data and make decisions via it.

If this is for a business account, then trends would be good here I think (if it existed for business accounts!) but you have connections into accountancy tools that will do this for you/your accountant will.

Genuinely can’t understand a possible use case for this one if I’m honest, looking into a transaction and seeing it as “pending” or “cleared” might help but that’s about it.

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[Not seen it on a personal account in the last decade] is not the metric that you think it is…

But I take your point about the demand, you may be right.

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Accountants/businesses need it, the general population does not.

If you can find a workaround that works for you, you’d be better off running with it as I’d say the chance of this happening is slim to none.

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As someone who’s never reconciled anything, at what point does one mark transactions with a :ballot_box_with_check: ?

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@JIMMWX yes my intention is that this is available for a personal account, although it would be useful for a business account, but as you say this is overlapping with business accounting software which is likely going to perform this function in a more thorough. There is no such alternative for a personal account which is why this function it would be filling a gap that won’t be filled by anything else.

Yes a quick visual check of what is pending or cleared as you say is a good way of describing it.

Actually you make a very interesting point. A existing alternative might be to set an Unreconciled Category. This prevents it from hitting individual budget categories that you don’t want it to. But will means your budget summary will be wrong until you move funds from your pot. Good chat.

At the stage where you’ve pretty much given in with any kind of life :eyes::rofl: you just wouldn’t, there’s no need. Open app, yep my transactions are correct, close app. Drink a beer :beer:

Transactions that are taken by Direct Debit and which are linked and taken automatically from your Direct Debit pot for instance should automatically have a tick on it with no user input, because we know that these transactions don’t hit your budget summary or any individual budget category.

Ad-hoc spontaneous payments will not automatically be ticked, you need to do it manually. EG: If I pay an last minute electrician for an emergency repair, but want the money to come out of an emergency mortgage pot for instance then I do not want this item to hit the budget summary or any budget category. So it should remain unticked [therefore highlighted to me], until I move the money from the pot, and ticket the Exclude From Summary option on the transaction. At that point I can tick the payment and the pot movement transaction, quickly telling me on scan that I have already reviewed and made sure these transactions are not hitting the budget, that the budget remaining for the month is correct. And that I should focus on the other 12 other unticked ad-hoc transactions which do need to be reviewed. Hopefully that makes sense.

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It’s not for everyone for sure, just like budgets are not for everyone, and categories are not for everyone, and pots are not for everyone, and automatic payments hitting pots are not for everyone.

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It’s niche and will be for barely anyone, there’s more chance of cheque processing via the app been introduced than this idea in all honesty.

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More chance of having Tom Blom on speed dial in the app.

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