kmorgan221 if you’re comparing directly to your account every day, there’s no need for import. All import does is compare to your account every day. 

Green Lightning Furthermore, if this is the case (transactions I entered are now matched with a pending transactions), it seems to no longer show up in the pending transaction window but in the posted window - which is incorrect.  Because on my bank's website, they are still pending.  This is confusing.

Hi Green Lightning !

That is correct! They'll match to the pending transaction and will show in your regular list of transactions, but as an uncleared transaction. When the transaction imports as cleared, it will change in the register and you'll be asked to confirm.

The matching icon is the only change here. If you enter a transaction and leave it uncleared, it sits as uncleared until a posted transaction imports and matches it. Pending transactions work the same way, the only difference is that it will now match twice - once, as uncleared when the pending transaction matches to the manually entered transaction, and again as cleared when the posted transaction imports.

 Faness 

This seems to be a confusing way of doing things.  As it is, my bank statement shows two pending transactions but YNAB shows both of those as entered in my register and not pending.  Won't that make the balances not match up?

Faness Ok, I went ahead and approved the match.  So it looks like it then shows a clock symbol letting me know that it is in fact pending even though it doesn't not show up in the pending section above.  So now I just wait for it to clear and I will need to approve (or confirm as you say) it again?  Am I understanding it correctly?

Green Lightning Yes, that's right. Once those transactions import again, they'll match again, and you'll be asked to confirm/approve. 

Those two pending transactions should be marked as Uncleared for now. So you're Uncleared balance at the top of the register will include them, but your Cleared balance won't (and the Cleared Balance should match your bank account balance).

Faness Ok, thank you.  I think I (mostly) understand.  I agree with Word Tenor's idea for a tip to show up - or a link to an article explaining it.  A quick search on your website didn't turn up anything but I didn't dig deeper since I just set up a chat and asked here.  Thank you again!

GrieseMail We do have this announcement posted in the forum and another announcement on the YNAB website. I believe as this is rolled out there's an explanation given in the app, but not a pop-up for when the first pending transaction imports - I really like that idea, too! :)

WordTenor This is a great idea!  Or a link to an article or video to explain it.

WordTenor I said it above but wanted to reiterate that I love the idea of an 'as it happens' explanation. Currently, there's the pop-up explaining pending transactions once a YNABer is first given access but nothing after that.

Faness I did eventually get to an article from someone who was helping on chat.  When I did the initial search on the website I didn't find it but admittedly didn't dig deeper as of yet as I was getting help here and on chat.  So I will be looking that over for more clarification.  Thanks so much for your help (you and the whole team!).

Faness Hmmm, I must have missed the explanation with the pop up.  No worries.  We are good now.

GrieseMail That's another reason I like the idea of a pop up when it happens - the current explanation only shows one time, so if it's missed it can leave a lot of questions behind. 

Glad you found that article and happy to help! :) 

glynab I have the same question

glynab I figured it out. Changed the pending amount to the true total (bill + tip) and select enter now. Then select both transactions & match them. The transaction will then have a "clock" icon next to it to show that it's still pending. Once it clears, you will be asked for final approval.

glynab #2 -- delete the pending version. It's a shame this seems to be creating more work for those users who enter manually for the most up-to-date balances.

dakinemaui Yeah part of the problem is that we fought the hard battle to get a manual match to take the imported version as truth. Which is what you want when it's the cleared transaction--you want to fix any fat-fingering you may have done. If you recall, originally the software wouldn't allow you to match two transactions unless they were the same. 

But with a pending transaction you want it exactly the other way--you want the match to take the manually entered transaction as the right one. So now you have to fiddle with the transaction instead of just matching it. 

It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out. This version is leaps and bounds better than the original build, but it still relies on a pretty high-level knowledge of transaction states and when to trust your entry vs. the bank's that I think is beyond a sizable percentage of YNABers (not particularly targeting anyone in this thread, mostly thinking of the questions I see on FB)

dakinemaui No, the easiest solution is to do nothing. You don't have to enter it into your budget. Just hide the pending section.

Beige Unicorn Cool thanks, I'll give it a try next time.

dakinemaui True, I didn't think to delete it.  This should work.

Well, I was able to try this out.  Match worked great and completely solved my question.  It is also nice to know that I can delete it if things are out of whack.

Overall, I like the pending activity.  It gives an early peek at something I forgot, something I entered wrong, or something that a family member bought (I usually know what/when they are buying something, but the the details are sometimes sketchy).

Superbone I'm 99% sure it doesn't but I can't actually check right now because of the other importing problem I'm having. Hey, actually did you have that problem? Do you use DI? The import re-downloaded everything from 9/15 onward from my Schwab account. 

WordTenor Yes, I use DI heavily. I have not had that issue with my Schwab Investor Checking account.

Superbone Interesting! Mine picked (for the second time) up every single transaction since 9/15 this morning. Since that included three CC payments, my mortgage, and a big overdue transfer to my savings account, my budget is now out of whack by several thousand dollars. 

WordTenor That is weird... and NOT GOOD!

I wonder if we're on different import providers. I'm pretty sure I'm on MX and not Plaid.

Faness said:
For instance, reconciling should prevent those duplicates from re-re-importing until we hear back from our import partner and File Based Importing should bypass the duplicates in the same way.

Maybe that explains the difference? My account was reconciled other than my three most recent transactions.

Superbone Perhaps. It did have some unreconciled transactions that it didn’t double dip though. And it was a date that didn’t correspond to anything in particular. It was very weird. 
 

 Also, confirmed that it takes the pending transaction when you manually match. Again, it’s what we fought for with cleared transactions, so I understand why the logic is written that way, but for pending transactions the manual entry is likely the right one. So...sigh. 

WordTenor I have yet to see the functionality but it seems from what i'm reading is that for those transactions that match, I could reject them all(doesn't seem there is value) and then for those that don't match, review if there is a transaction it should have matched, reject the pending.  And only accept those that were missed by manual entry. This all sounds like a pain for very little benefit.

WordTenor Yeah, that's a drag. I guess in this case, it's better to just delete the pending transaction.

Herman For the transactions which match, you can accept them all. But yes about the second part. 
This functionality is for the people who come in here screaming that YNAB is broken because they can’t import. Unfortunately the Venn diagram of people who are relying entirely on import and people who likely don’t understand that pending transactions often don’t capture the final spend is more or less a circle. I predict problems as this rolls out and people accept say, a non tipped pending transaction, and then download the cleared, tipped transaction and it doesn’t auto match and then their accounts get way out of whack. And then they’ll do a reconciliation adjustment transaction and it will all get worse. 

I’m not saying I’m popping popcorn, but...

WordTenor I'm particularly unhappy with the way it sounds liked it impacts mobile.

WordTenor Herman I had a lot of feelings and feedback using pending transactions, particularly for mobile. It can go a few ways, depending on habits and level of interaction:

• For those of us who enter transactions, with the tip scenario my personal preference is to manually match the entered + pending (pre-tip). The automatic logic relies on amounts being the same. The pending transaction could be manually matched, deleted , or the section could be collapsed until it dropped off (least ideal, but an option). iOS specific, Android behavior is a bit different for now. 
• For folks that rely on Direct Import, pending transactions appear in the collapsable section (added visibility), but will disappear from that section when the posted version is ready to import.

Reconciling regularly of course is important, no matter how transactions come in. It was thoroughly tested with YNABers of all levels. The iteration has been fascinating! We're optimistic and keeping a close eye as it rolls out. We'll update the announcement thread with news.

Nicole 

In the first scenario you describe, if you enter with tip, you can't manually match the pending import because it changes the amount to the amount of the pending transaction. So then you have to change it back, or delete the imported pending transaction. I don't especially mind it, but it is less cumbersome than it would be if the logic were written such that for a cleared transaction, the amount updated to the imported amount, and for a pending, it kept the manual entry. 

The fundamental issue here is, as I said, the fact that there's an almost complete overlap between people who don't understand transaction states and those who rely entirely on direct import, and using pending transaction import in a way that is useful relies on this knowledge. Or perhaps better to say that "people who don't understand transaction states" is probably a circle almost entirely subsumed by "people who rely on DI for entry." Transaction states have always been an issue for YNAB not because there's something wrong with YNAB but because users don't understand them.  This fundamental problem has had multiple attempted solutions over the years (I remember in particular the decision to take away the auto-population of the cleared balance in the reconciliation tool in YNAB 4.) 

I think this feature is pretty okay, with the exception of pending transactions which have a tip, where it becomes extra work. However, when I first set up YNAB, I knew enough to have the good sense that I needed to enter all my pending transactions as part of the initial setup even though the instructions did not say to do this. So for people without that level of financial sense, it's absolutely going to confuse them, this thread being a huge case in point already (and this isn't even someone who is all that confused.)  

There's also the fact that the very silly "feature" of having you approve a manually-matched transaction has never been changed. That adds an extra, unwelcome step.
 

WordTenor The matching criteria prioritizes the information you enter. If the pending transaction is $20.00 and you've entered the purchase+tip for $24.00, manually matching pending + entered would keep the $24.00.

This aligns with what I've seen in iOS, but if that's not the case for you—we can look closer. An example of before and after the manual match would be handy! If you prefer not to use the feedback form, I can reach out via email.

Nicole much later but I remembered this was a thing and had an opportunity to test it tonight. I can confirm this is not the case. 

Favorite Chinese joint; standard order. It is 9.85 with tax. I tip 2.15 so it is an even $12. 
Manually entered $12. Matched it with the pending $9.85. YNAB has now put $2.15 back into my dining out category and recorded the transaction as $9.85. 

I’m on top of this, so no biggie, but...could y’all stop half-baking “improvements”? For a pending transaction, the bank’s transaction Should not take precedent. For a cleared transaction the bank’s version should take precedent. 

WordTenor I have a bunch of assorted recent observations on related behaviors as well, in this thread.   I feel like YNAB has always automatically given precedent to the bank, whereas my local financial app gives me a “choice” through dragging and matching, even though it is way wonkier in that it will continue to import transactions I’ve tried to exclude for weeks.  And there are many more misfired matches than YNAB, which should really be much more straightforward (hello, check number match really that hard?). So I’ve always appreciated that YNAB’s matching is a much better fit to my workflow and typical use cases.

But yes, it seems that they haven’t properly updated their matching intelligence to fit the pending transaction model.  I spit out a bunch of other ones further down.  And I just had the first pending transaction with tip added later and considering it wasn’t my transaction and I let my husband off the hook on reporting takeout receipts years ago, I got really mixed up.   Unless I’m a beta tester (I applied), I’m not going through all that bug reporting rigamarole, though.  I appreciate your diligence in sorting through this for us! :)

WordTenor This behavior has been updated to be consistent with the matching criteria. That makes my tip above obsolete, so I'd recommend deleting the pending transaction instead of matching manually. Here's how matching will prioritize entered data, which hasn't changed:

• Date: your data
• Payee: your data
• Memo: your data (even if it's blank)
• Amount: the bank's data

I have let our know team know you'd like to see it the opposite, but think the line here was to keep it consistent for all imported transactions. It changes my workflow a bit as well!

Nicole That is how it has always worked in my budget. 

But I hope you and the devs understand that consistency makes no sense here. In fact, I'll go all the way here: it is flat-out wrong. In one instance (cleared) the banks info is the correct info, because even if the user entered something they thought they had been charged, what matters is what the bank actually recorded as cleared. But in the case of a pending transaction, we know the bank's data is incomplete. So the user-entered amount is more than likely correct. 

Cleared and pending are different transaction states, and therefore, the way they interact with a manually input transaction should be different. Saying that it's better if it's consistent would be like saying that all transactions should be outflow transactions because that way it's always consistent.  It doesn't map on to the reality of how money works. 

WordTenor Reminds me of the Emerson quote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."

Nicole This makes me glad capital one doesn't support pending transactions(at least not yet).  Since I can't turn this functionality off, this at least cuts down on the number of mismatches caused by this terrible logic.

Herman Fortunately my bank appears to only support pending deposits and transfers so I don't have the problem with tips and such - at least not yet.  This whole "feature" is so poorly conceived.  If you're going to create a financial product like this that interacts with the banking system then it really helps if you actually understand how the banking system works.

Pink Zebra You already have this. Hide the pending section. It is optional.

Superbone I receive app alerts for every pending transaction and they appear on my “New Transactions” task list. There’s no option to hide those, so they don’t seem to be optional. Do you have any additional suggestions of things I might have missed?

Pink Zebra You can reject them all from the same menu where you accept them all, if you wish.

Pink Zebra That's a good point. I usually use the web app for accepting new transactions. If there isn't a way to turn those off on mobile, there should be.

WordTenor Some times I accept, sometimes I reject. It’s still frustrating to have to deal with a third set of transactions all the time.

I understand that for people who are only using linked accounts, it lets them see their transactions faster, but if you’re using manual entry with linked accounts, like YNAB suggests, it actually impedes the process. I’m strongly considering unlinking my accounts at this point as it doubles the amount of imported transactions I have to deal with with no value added. 

Pink Zebra  Do you use iOS or Android on mobile? I'd be happy to check on that. For my personal device (iOS), pending transactions don't impact those—but would like to clarify with our developers. That's an important one! 

I hear you on the extra approval step when entering transactions yourself. That was one on my list as well.

Pink Zebra It looks like it's the same for Android. There are a few other things that can impact app or badge notifications. Do any apply to your budget? Let me know!

 Nicole I’m on iOS and I’m not seeing any options to fine tune app/budget notifications either inside or outside the app. I’ve never noticed if only a pending transaction will cause an iOS alert, but I’ll try to pay attention to this.

Pink Zebra  Thanks! Reading this again, it sounds like the bank connection is importing twice—and needs adjusting. Grab a quick screenshot before rejecting and our importing team can help get it sorted out!

Pink Zebra Agree completely.  I also enter manually and then import and match to clear.  This functionality is the reason that I chose YNAB in 2012.  I have absolutely ZERO need or desire to import pending transactions and am deeply concerned about this being rolled out to me.  I am hoping that my bank doesn't support it because I think that this whole "enhancement" is a very bad idea.

Hi Orange Sloth !

Pending transactions shouldn't have interfered with your transactions importing as usual. If you're now having trouble importing at all, please report a Bank Importing Issue so our Direct Import Team can take a look at things for you.

bobbucy The pending transactions do not import with Cleared status.

Of course, the screen real estate issue and general confusion about approval/editing/matching/re-matching discussed above when manually entered transactions are present obviously still stand. I agree, a simple checkbox on the linking dialog is a great idea.

dakinemaui Thank you for the clarification.  With regard to the checkbox on the linking dialog, this seems like a no brainer to me.  I don't understand why YNAB would not have already considered this in UI design and the fact that some people neither want or need this feature.  Whether it's this or something as simple as check numbers, their whole approach seems to continue to be "we'll tell you what you need and you'll like it".

Tan Yearling Where was the deficit you mentioned? When reconciling, you're using the Cleared Balance—but uncleared transactions (pending or otherwise) impact the Uncleared and Working Balances. That part hasn't changed.

Pending transactions will import as uncleared with a clock icon. They will automatically match when: the amounts are the same and the date is within 10 days, and ask for your approval.

After they post at the bank, they'll import as cleared—matching and asking for approval once more. There is an extra approval step that wasn't there before that makes you look twice. I felt strongly about this as well, and it takes some getting used to. Our Product team would love to hear your feedback on how it goes!

Nicole The deficit appeared during reconciliation.

1. A single transaction was matched and asked for approval. 
2. I approved the transaction.
3. I reconciled my account and noticed the deficit. (YNAB balance is lower than Bank balance).

I think the bug is associated with "approve", does this action mark the matched transaction as cleared? Is there such a state as "approved and pending", without affecting how reconciliation works?

Tan Yearling Pending transactions are not cleared by definition.

Nicole  and Faness  I got some screenshots for ya. Check out this screenshot of a fresh import I made today. I want to call your attention to two things.

1. The two transactions in red, are marked cleared by YNAB but is pending according to my bank.

2. The two transactions in blue is the the effect of this bug: A transaction that has been previously imported, auto-matched, and approved; has now been imported again. Effectively creating a double entry.

The user has no reason to believe any of these transactions are pending. Like a good YNAB user, they'd match and approve like normal. If they then reconcile, they'd discover a deficit in YNAB.

Tan Yearling Ah, thank you for the screenshot! This is going to sound weird... but there is pending transactions (feature) and pending transactions (bank issue = duplicate transactions).

Looks like the latter is the culprit here, but we can definitely help get it sorted out. Sending a reply to your recent email right now!

Nicole I am having this issue as well with Chase and it can't seem to undo whatever caused it now.

bobbucy They might have turned it off.  I don't see pending anymore for my Chase account.  Though it's already messed up my budget and I can't get it back to sync properly.

VoltaicShock Do you see any duplicate transactions in your register? And do you know how long it's been since you've reconciled your account? If it's been a bit, the difference may be from further back!

Sent you an email so we can figure out. 😄

glynab I'm glad it's working for you but it jacked up my budget and I can't get it back in sync.  I have tried importing and also reviewing each line by line and something is off but I can't tell where now.

I'm sure I will figure it out just annoyed at it at the moment.

VoltaicShock I feel for you.  I believe you have an issue.  I just hope that it gets fixed rather than removed. 

glynab I haven't been lobbying for it to go away.  My position is that something this big should have been designed as optional.  Right now I'm holding my breath every time I open YNAB because I really am not looking forward to this being activated on my account.

glynab Yeah it was active on my account and now it seems to have gone away.  What happened was it pulled in some transactions and it didn't sync with what was there and I noticed some duplicates and removed them but somehow the math is all wrong and it's not adding up as it should.  I am going to see what happens with my next import and go from there.

VoltaicShock I know Nicole reached out via email, but I wanted to mention here that Pending Transactions will only be listed in your register if you currently have some sitting at your bank. If there aren't any Pending Transactions in your account, the "Pending Transactions" section won't be shown in your register. It isn't that we removed it or turned it off, there just aren't currently any ready to view. :)

Faness I don't even know if my bank supports this, so how will we know if it has been activated on our account?  Is there a notification that it is now active or will we just know if pending transactions show up in our accounts?

bobbucy Yes, there is a notification that will pop-up in the bottom right-hand corner on the web app once the feature is turned on for your account. If your bank does not support pending transactions, you won't notice a difference in your register.

Hi Ivory Sloth !

The Pending Transactions section can be minimized, so that you don't see the pending transactions, but they can not be turned off so that they don't import at all. If you keep the section minimized they won't affect your budget in any way.

Ivory Sloth Hi, there! I'm jumping in for Faness. Can you talk a bit more about how the pending transactions feature is overused? I'd like to hear more!

Ivory Sloth  Gotcha! Yep--I notice this in my accounts, too! Thanks for the clarification.

If they’re still pending days later then without pending transaction import, they wouldn’t have imported as cleared yet. You’d have to manually clear them in order to reconcile anyway. It’s not the pending transaction feature that is causing this, it’s the connection with your bank. I’d file an importing issue ticket. 

Yep, sounds like a DI issue. The pending transaction feature itself is perfectly simple and matches what the banks know. They first come in as pending and uncleared and then after they clear, they come in again as cleared and matched. That's it.

I am curious how much YNAB has done for you after being there from the very beginning and sticking with it all this time. I started with YNAB Pro in 2008 and it has been life altering.

Superbone I agree. The Pending feature does what you say it does. However, if you are like most folks. We enter each transaction as it occurs. And that will create another pending transaction in YNAB. Then when the DI comes into Play it occurs again.  This is the problem, just like you said. My beef is simple, there are too many Pending transactions for the same transaction. One is enough. We should be able to turn on or off, at will, the Pending Transaction feature. End of story. Cheers.

Ivory Sloth If you've already added the transaction, then don't accept the pending transaction. Either that or match it with your transaction. They don't enter into your budget without your permission.

Ivory Sloth the pending should be matching the one you manually entered -- not a duplicate. Same thing when the cleared version imports.

If you are seeing duplicates, you should report that as a bug.

BTW, I think most nYNAB users do not enter manually first, in spite of the numerous advantages. Certainly that's my impression of the majority of the posts over the last 5 years.

dakinemaui most likely the "majority" of users don't post on the forum or social media.   They just happily budget away and get control of their money. 

dakinemaui I am solidly in the minority that manually enters transactions when they occur, then import and match to clear.  That is the primary reason that my wife and I started using YNAB in January 2012.

Ivory Sloth Exactly, and that is the feature request that I submitted.  To their credit, YNAB has communicated with me about it, although I have no idea where this will go.  Right now, I am dreading opening up YNAB one morning and finding that this feature has landed on my account.

bobbucy It landed in my one linked account recently and it's easy enough to just ignore/hide. No big deal...

bobbucy honestly I haven't found it that onerous. I match transactions every morning. Pending transactions match twice. I enter it in at POS. The pending transaction imports, I approve the match. A day or two later, the cleared transaction imports, and I approve the match. Am I technically clicking one or two more bubbles every day? Sure. Is it a big dealbreaker? No, especially since it allows me to catch the "Oh right I did stop and grab a coffee while I was at the supermarket" transaction a few days earlier than I might have. 

What I've now seen twice in this thread is someone getting upset because a pending transaction imported for a transaction which was cleared by their bank. And both times it's been because they have failed to understand that if the pending transaction had not imported, nothing would have imported. Some banks take another 24-36 hours to post a cleared transaction to the importing service. So it's not that they're seeing a pending transaction import in place of a cleared transaction, they're seeing a pending transaction import in place of nothing. The cleared transaction will still take another day or so, just as always. 

WordTenor Have you tried this on the mobile app? I just looked at the account with my one pending transaction and it won't let me click on it or match it/reject it. It's just sitting there being useless...

Periwinkle Flute On the web it works as expected.

Periwinkle Flute WordTenor Never mind. I just read the article about Pending Transactions in which they said that for Android users these would appear as "read only" for now.

Hi FTroopmom and Ivory Sloth !

I wanted to gather a few more details about how you're currently using the Pending Transactions feature to see if there's anyway we could make it less intrusive in your budgets. Do you currently leave the Pending Transactions section expanded and interact with those transactions, or do you minimize that section to ignore them? If you minimize the section, are the pending transactions hard for you to ignore? We want minimizing Pending Transactions to be like turning them off and I'd love to hear why that isn't working for you.

Faness I have received so many comments on this, all with a different opinion or comment, that leads me to believe, this feature is what it is, and nothing will change. So I will deal with it the way it is until YNAB does something about it or I find something better. Regarding your comment/response. I never said the feature the way YNAB designed it doesn't work for me. What I did say was, is that there are too many repeated Pending transactions when the feature is used.  What I would like to see, and this is my preference, is the ability to turn the feature on or off. That's it. Nothing more.  I hope not to have to read anymore remarks on this topic. I am done with it. Thanks and have a great day.

Faness  I keep the pending transaction feature minimized.  When I reconcile my account, 2 X/monthly, often my ynab balance and my bank balance are not the same.  I then go through and find transactions that I did not enter (my husband did not enter... 🙂) and manually enter them as per the date they cleared the bank since I don't really know when the transaction occurred.

By the time I reconcile the numbers, there might be 4 or 5 transactions that are not "cleared" by YNAB pending standards, but have cleared my bank by several days, if not a week or more.  In fact, I forget to check the pending transactions until after I enter them manually.  Once my account is reconciled, I then go to the pending and scheduled transactions. In the pending I will find several of the just manually entered transactions in the pending feature.  I delete them from there, but I find it odd that this feature is even offered as it doesn't seem to function well or consistently.  Transactions posted as cleared by my bank on the same day are not cleared in YNAB.

I have been using YNAB since 2004-2005 ish when it first come out. I have adapted and embraced most every change, even the nYNAB way of operating. But the pending feature is not helpful to me at all and I do wish I could opt out completely from it.

I can see where for some people it might be helpful, but for me, I am thinking about stopping the DI altogether because of duplications and the pending transaction feature. Maybe it would be better to place the pending transactions into the cleared transactions with a certain indicator that they are pending (italicized, different color, etc).

I love YNAB. It has changed our family tree on debt and savings.  I just dislike the pending feature.  

FTroopmom 

FTroopmom said:
By the time I reconcile the numbers, there might be 4 or 5 transactions that are not "cleared" by YNAB pending standards, but have cleared my bank by several days, if not a week or more.  In fact, I forget to check the pending transactions until after I enter them manually.  Once my account is reconciled, I then go to the pending and scheduled transactions. In the pending I will find several of the just manually entered transactions in the pending feature.  I delete them from there, but I find it odd that this feature is even offered as it doesn't seem to function well or consistently.  Transactions posted as cleared by my bank on the same day are not cleared in YNAB.

 This is an import issue, not the pending transaction feature. Something is screwed up with regard to your bank's connection. If you have transactions staying as pending long after the cleared transaction existing, it's because YNAB isn't picking up the cleared status from your bank. I'd file an import support ticket.

You can continue entering transactions manually and ignoring the pending transaction input. But if you have a forgetful spouse, a better solution might be to open the pending transaction queue and approve the pending transactions that aren't in YNAB before reconciling the account rather than going to the bank first, manually entering them all, and then deleting them from the pending transactions. Or, you also can just ignore the pending transaction section--the pending versions will disappear when the cleared transaction downloads. 

WordTenor  I appreciate the input, truly I do. But the point of my original post is that I wish I could just opt out. I have better things to do with my time than to investigate why imports are only working sometimes, determine if it is the bank or YNAB and then follow all the rabbit trails that it will lead me down. 

If I could turn the feature off, it would be preferable. I think if I d/c DIs it would fix the problem, but then I lose using a feature I enjoy.

Life is too short to submit service tickets.  LOL. 😉

I believe you can already opt out on the web version by hiding the pending transactions section. My understanding is that YNAB is working on making that possible for the mobile apps as well.

FTroopmom If you haven't gotten in touch with support yet, please do! This is probably an importing issue unrelated to pending transactions, but we'd definitely like to take a look and make sure.

Superbone You can hide pending transactions on mobile on iOS (I don't have android so can't attest) 

Ivory Sloth so don't read and don't respond.  You don't "have to' read or respond to anything. 

WordTenor I have iOS as well and I wasn’t sure as I do use them and didn’t attempt to hide them but I thought I had seen that you couldn’t yet on Android but they’re working on it.

Superbone Nope, can't hide them on Android yet.

Superbone And can't use them yet, either. All you can do is stare at them...

Periwinkle Flute That’s weird!

Superbone Yup! But they sure look pretty sitting there all gray and useless... (good thing I use the web for almost everything so this doesn't bother me).

Periwinkle Flute I was part of the beta for the pending feature and that’s how it was at the beginning. It was frustrating. The only choice was to look at it and type it in yourself.

Superbone 

Superbone said:
I believe you can already opt out on the web version by hiding the pending transactions section.

 That's a negative. I have an account that I turned on import for. It automatically matched the pending transactions with no separate pending section, and I had no way to know they were pending until after I approved the match as there was no on-screen indication they were pending. Which means when they import again as final I have to approve them yet again.

That is very annoying and very much a waste of time.

There should be an option to disable this feature entirely, as it creates a ton of busy work for people who manually enter transactions.

nolesrule said:
I had no way to know they were pending until after I approved the match

Wouldn't the non-cleared status (gray C) have told you that it's pending?

Forgive my confusion, are you saying that upon matching, it does NOT show up in the pending subsection? It is only after approval that it MOVES into that subsection??

dakinemaui A pending subsection never appeared at any point. The transactions imported, matched with existing manually input transactions with the linking icon as a call to action to approve the matches. A pending icon (clock) appeared in the spot where the linking icon appears after approving the matching.

Yeah, I guess maybe the gray cleared icon would be an indicator, but the linking icon on the left is more of a visual draw and also is a trained call to action, so it draws your attention as something that needs to be done and is difficult to ignore.

nolesrule this seems like a bug based on the way it is reported to work.

nolesrule said:
A pending subsection never appeared at any point.

Hopefully Support will be along to comment on this soon, as it seems contrary to what they've been saying. OTOH, I wouldn't want a transaction *I* entered to move.

dakinemaui I agree i wouldn't want my transaction to move but i want to be able to collapse the pending section and ignore them completely.  I don't want to match them with my manually entered transactions until cleared.  This is what was described.  I don't have it yet so all speculation for me.

dakinemaui The pending subsection won't appear if all of your pending transactions have been entered into the register, either because:

1. You clicked Enter Now on the pending transaction, or
2. The pending transaction matched a transaction you entered.

One of the design goals for the pending transaction feature was: a pending transaction will never affect your budget or your account balance unless you affirmatively express that it should. You can express this by manually entering the transaction (in which case the imported pending transaction will match the one you entered, leaving the transaction uncleared and with the clock icon), or by clicking Enter Now.

Matthew 

Matthew said:
You can express this by manually entering the transaction (in which case the imported pending transaction will match the one you entered, leaving the transaction uncleared and with the clock icon)

 Except that it the match requires approval (linking icon) before it will show the clock icon, so there's no way to tell if what was imported was the Pending or Posted transaction until after the match has been approved.

I don't want that behavior, because I don't want to have to take any action related to Pending transactions, but now I am forced to in order to even find out if the import was Pending or Posted.

Please make Pending transactions an optional feature.

nolesrule this really annoys me and i don't have it yet.  So much for you can just ignore it if you don't want to use it.

nolesrule 

Herman said:
nolesrule this really annoys me and i don't have it yet.  So much for you can just ignore it if you don't want to use it.

 Of course I received the update over night.  My first pending transaction came in, matched to my manually entered transaction so I have no 'pending' section.  This just seems like busy work for people that manually enter.  I will see after I use it for a while.

WordTenor So the first pending transaction just showed up in my account.  Said that I had a transaction to import so I did.  It matched to an existing transaction so I approved it.  The only reason that I know that it came through as a pending transaction is the little clock icon sitting next to it to tell me that it's pending.  The fact of the matter is that we enter transactions manually as they occur and rarely miss one.  So now I get to approve every one of them twice because somebody thinks that it's a "feature".  And these aren't in a separate section that I can hide.  It just came into the register like any other transaction.  I was also told that when it was activated that I would see a message when I logged on, which didn't happen.  

I understand how the banking process works and how long it takes for stuff to clear.  I guess I'm happy that this is so useful to somebody else because it's completely useless to me.

nolesrule Working exactly the same way for me.  I have submitted the feature request to turn off the feature.  To YNAB's credit, they have responded to me and we have had a couple of e-mail exchanges about it.  If they are truly willing to consider it and are working on a solution then they should tell us because it is truly useless and an annoyance to those of us manually entering transactions and then matching and clearing them.

From a design perspective, I have suggested that there be an option to include or not include pending transactions on each non-cash account.  The initial reply that I received is that they have no control over what the import partner sends them in the file but I don't see how that matters.  They obviously know which transactions being imported are pending and it should not be technically difficult to exclude them from posting to the account if that is the option that the customer has chosen.

bobbucy Thanks for submitting hte feature request. I've given up on them actually considering useful requests from veteran users, so I have not bothered with it as I consider it a waste of time.

This was obviously designed and built for people who import all transactions, with no actual consideration given to those who do manual entry and do not wish to see pending transactions at all.

bobbucy I completely agree that it creates twice the number of clicks and approvals. My point about people not understanding the clearing process at their bank is related to people seeing a pending transaction, seeing the corresponding cleared transaction, and getting mad instead of realizing that before that feature was activated, they wouldn’t have seen any transaction in YNAB.

nolesrule  What drives me nuts is the "all or nothing" mentality of YNAB.  Jesse doesn't write checks so nobody needs a check number field.  We think this whiz bang pending "enhancement" is great so everybody is going to use it whether they like it or not.  Proper software development creates options for customers.

nolesrule Yes, it's an extra click. But aren't you already looking over and approving matched transactions in bulk?

Matthew I fail to see the relevance. or are you assuming that this is an account that has transactions importing on a daily basis so that it doesn't make a difference?

That would be an unwarranted assumption. This account generally has 1 to a handful of transactions per month, so it doubles up the work to approve the transactions needlessly.

Here's an example. My wife made 2 purchase on a card over the weekend. It's a store card so it's only used with this particular brand, either online or in a store.  This day there were one of each. They were manually entered. Then the pending transactions were imported together. Thematches from the import then had to be approved, and showed up as pending. Then 2 days later, one of the transactions posted, and the cleared one had to then be approved again. Still waiting for the 2nd transaction to post, and then I'll have to approve that one.

Having to approve the linking on the pending transactions was a complete waste of time and effort, because of the manually entered transactions.
 

I.
 

Do.

Not.

Want.

This.

Feature.

Make.

It.

Stop.

nolesrule I get that this represents extra effort on this account for information that you don't find useful. I'm not sure what else to tell you—the feature is here to stay and is unlikely to become optional, although I expect we'll have a way to collapse it on mobile.

glynab 's reply is exactly why I like the feature, too. My family members also enter every transaction... except when we forget, and pending transactions alert us faster when that happens. That insight comes with a cost, however, which is that more info/a new type of info is getting thrown at you. If you're not interested in that, yes, it's going to be an annoyance.

Hey folks! I removed two posts that go against our Community Guidelines and followed up via private message. We here in the Forum (and the YNAB team in general) appreciate your passion to make YNAB the best it can be, even when it's a tough conversation. Please remember that we're all YNABers too, and let's keep the thread on topic.

The YNAB team is proud of the work that we do and no feature is implemented lightly without testing and iteration. Pending Transactions are no exception, and have been a long time coming! The feature is not released to all just yet, so I hope you'll give it a try first. If you see odd behavior, check out this post to rule out a Direct Import issue.

Feedback from you is always valuable and considered. Improving how we communicate is an ongoing conversation. Veronica's post on our process is a good one to reference. The Feature Request form allows our Product & Design teams to read every single request and piece of feedback. You'll hear from our Product team, who can offer more insight as well! We recently simplified the form, so it's much shorter. 😉

Nicole I didn't realize criticism was against the guidelines. Good to know.

Nicole I'm really perturbed. I read those posts and the fact that you felt they were worthy of deletion is rather shocking to me.

Boo

Nicole We did the delete-gate thing once already. It wasn't a good look for the company then and it still isn't now.  

I missed all the excitement.

Sure I’ll try that out this week. 

dakinemaui Apologies! Missed this one. If that first match (entered + pending) isn't approved, and sits until the posted version comes in—it "replaces" the pending, auto clears and you'll approve once. Let me know if that's what you're looking for, or something else.