Hi team,
Would you be able to implement this? Otherwise snoop forces me to do this after 2-3 days once the transaction has actually happened and not when I want! It is annoying because I’ll have to remember doing it and need to go back and forth cross matching the amount and the right category!
Thanks
Hi @MBA1413 the reason we don’t currently do this is that Pending transactions change often between them first appearing and when they actually get confirmed as a ‘booked’ (i.e. final) transaction by your bank.
With some banks we sometimes see different descriptions, merchant identifiers, transaction dates and even amounts between the ‘pending’ and the final record. Also with certain banks, we don’t get any sort of consistent identification number which links the pending item and the one that ultimately becomes confirmed.
So in order for us to reliably avoid duplicate transactions appearing - we actually remove pending transactions every time we refresh your account and just ask your bank for the latest position each time.
That’s why we don’t current support editing of those pending items - as they only exist temporarily.
However, If you change a category for a merchant and pick the option to apply to ‘all transactions’ for a merchant - that category should be used even when something is pending. Drop us a line at hello@snoop.app with any examples if that’s not happening?
Paul
Hi @paul_k
Thank tot for your detailed answer.
While I understand that some of the things you’ve mentioned can change (date, merchant, amount, etc) that will not still impact the fact that I want it that category and not any other. In other words, if I know what I’ve purchased, then regardless of how the bank will confirmed that transaction later on, it doesn’t change the underlying of it if that makes sense?
But from what you said, it doesn’t seem possible to link the pending to the confirm one? The issue we are trying to solve from a customer experience is that I want to be in control of when and how I label things and not subject to when the bank or snoop confirms the transaction to suit them (because I may not visit snoop every day just to check that I can edit it!).
In regard to your last paragraph, Snoop usually works well labeling merchants you’ve done previously however it doesn’t when:
Also could you confirm if pending transactions go into the spend view or only confirmed ones? Otherwise you may see a big “shopping” one but it’s not shopping but something else and it was labeled shopping by default.
Hi @MBA1413 - I understand and we’d love to do more with pending transactions but the quality and consistency of data is just not there across all banks and credit card companies.
For some providers we don’t even get pending transactions. For some we see balances change before we know about the transaction. For others we just see the transaction and balance change for the first time when the transaction is confirmed.
If all banks did it the same way and gave us a reliable ID between the pending item and one that ultimately gets confirmed, we would be able to more easily resolve this.
In answer to your other questions - we don’t count or include pending transactions in your spend analysis and various other sections of our app for the same reasons I’ve outlined. We only count confirmed (‘booked’) transactions which should not change. We only really show the pending items in the main transaction lists.
One final thing - even if it’s a new merchant for you, we don’t always default the category to general. Obviously there are endless numbers of merchants across the globe and we see tens of thousands of new ones each day, so a lot may appear initially as general. However, if it’s the first time you’ve spent at a merchant but it’s one we’ve seen lots of times before, it will often have a more relevant category applied.
Hope that helps?
Paul