Starting Balance in Trends keeps changing for this month

Help Bug Reports
1

Issue:

When I open trends and check my starting balance for this month I keep seeing it change. I’ve noticed it a couple of times this month and I’ve seen it change by over £500.

I’ve got two screenshots from today where it’s moved by £130 on two different loads.

The total money in remains constant but the total money out is different. Today’s balance is constant as well. I’ve checked the maths with the current numbers and it appears to be correct now.

Details to reproduce:

Open trends and check the balance

OS:

iOS 18 DP3

Device:

iPhone 15 pro max

App Version:

5.83

Screenshots:

I’ve got two screen shots but with the problem needing my balances to be shown I’m not keen on sharing them publicly :open_mouth:

2

I’ve only just started putting more money through my connected accounts so I don’t know if this is trends not coping well with pending transactions on connected accounts?

Specially I’ve just started putting a lot more payments through my Amex account

3

In fact the difference between the two starting balances is exactly the value of the transactions I’ve put through Amex today that are pending.

So it looks like pending transactions don’t impact todays balance but do impact the money out total so the maths keeps breaking?

4

My Trends hasn’t reset for the forthcoming month. I have uninstalled and reinstalled but the month still ends at August 18th and is not predicting any bills etc

5

Did you set the Trends reporting period to be monthly on the 18th?

6

Hi David. I did yes.

1 Like
7

Then it’s working OK. Trends, like the soon-to-be-deleted-and-why-is-it-taking-so-long-to-sunset Summary, works to the end-of-cycle date only. It doesn’t go beyond that.

There’s currently no planning feature beyond the end of the next bills/pay cycle - which is typically a month.

8

All my transactions have cleared now and my starting balance has changed again but now matches the finishing balance from the previous month.

Can the balance screen use the previous months final balance as the starting balance rather than trying to work it out again? Or can it ignore pending transactions from connected accounts in its calculation?

9

I’m interpreting this issue as normal behaviour.

At the point where the current reporting cycle ends and the next one begins, the ending → starting figure can only be the same. It isn’t calculated, it’s simply the constantly changing account balance value. The complication occurs when a 'pending transaction spans the reporting end/start point with a connected account - but this will only be temporary and will balance itself after a few days.

10

All my pending transactions were well within this month.

If I pay for something now on my Amex, within my 25th to 24th pay cycle and the transaction gets sucked into trends, this is what happens to my numbers on the balance screen:

This month - this number doesn’t change (it should and I think is the problem)

Starting balance - this goes up by the amount I just spent (!?)

Total money in - remains the same

Total money out - goes up by the amount I just spent

If I look at my Amex connected account screen. I can see the pending transaction in my list of transactions but the balance at the top doesn’t reflect this. I think we knew this was a limitation at the start of connected accounts but I didn’t realise it was also breaking trends as well :neutral_face:

(I’ve just spent £5 on my Amex today to test all the above)

(Edit) I’ve also taken more before and after screenshots if anybody from Monzo needs them but hopefully I’ve explained the steps well enough

11

Just bought my lunch for £4.50 on Amex and my starting balance from the 25th of June has gone up another £4.50 :neutral_face:

12

Ah, this sounds weird.

I’m guessing if you remove the connected AMEX card from the report (Trends → balance tab → top-left ‘Filter’ drop-down → deselect AMEX account) the balance numbers shown are then correct?

13

Yeah, if I remove Amex all the other numbers obviously lose the Amex transactions but my starting balance reverts back to the correct number (my Amex was empty at the start of my month)

14

I’ve just spotted it’s changing the starting balance in every historical month as well so none of my months are correct.

For a bank providing these screens to help people manage their money it’s pretty disappointing that these tools are so unreliable :smiling_face_with_tear:

15

Does anybody know if the app giving you wrong numbers is something you can raise a complaint about?

16

I’d complain to Monzo via chat first.

Are the historical cycle-start reports also incorrect by the same amount as the current cycle-start report?

17

Now that more transactions have settled I’ve realised that the ending balance for previous months is also changing, it seems all the balances in trends, apart from the current balance, are calculated backwards from the current balance so when Amex doesn’t include pending transactions in their current balance it all falls over.

I was looking to speak with somebody last night but all my usual searches in help to get to a chat now button failed :grimacing: I’ll try looking again today in ‘business hours’

18

From Home, tap on ‘Help’ (bottom-right) then search for ‘contacting support’ The search should return a help article called ‘Contacting support’ - tap on it
In the section ‘Chat with us’, tap on ‘Tap here to get started’ to open chat

19

That’s where I got to yesterday but it takes we to this screen:

IMG_6059
IMG_60591290×2796 187 KB

Which doesn’t give me a relevant option and random ones I’ve tried just take me to dead end help pages.

20

Try ‘Cards, PINs, and Statements’, then select ‘None of the above’, then describe the problem & submit.