[GNC] Import Transaction Matcher issue in v4

Jean Laroche ripngo at gmail.com
Mon Jul 27 18:13:33 EDT 2020


Ah, OK I get it now!
Yes, you should check that from one day to the next, the FTID returned 
by citibank remains the same (for the same transaction). If not, then 
that's going to be a problem.
What has changed recently with GC is that it not will not match a new 
imported transaction with one from the register that has an online id. 
Previous versions allowed that, so in your case, it's quite possible 
that from one day to the next, the same transaction would be given a 
different ID, but GC matched it to the same register transaction that 
was previously matched.
So, on day 1, you'd match OFX1->Reg1, and on day two, you'd still match 
OFX2 -> reg1, even though reg1 had already been matched to OFX1 the 
previous day. So you'd see OFX2 appear as "match" and not "Add".

The correct behavior is that OFX2 actually has the same ID as OFX1, and 
it's entirely skipped by GC. But it seems that your bank is messing 
their online ID, and this is what's causing the issue for you, along 
with the new GC behavior.

I'm not sure how to fix your problem. It's clearly a bank issue but 
that's not terribly helpful as far as your problem goes. We should 
probably add an option to defeat the new GC import behavior, 
specifically for users like you whose bank send unreliable FTIDs/

FYI, the new GC behavior was added because the old behavior was causing 
issues with people who had recurring daily transactions: imagine buying 
a cup of coffee every day: in that case GC will match all daily cups of 
coffee to the same register transaction (within a date range, of course) 
instead of adding the new one every day (which really is the correct way 
to do it).



Jean


On 7/27/20 2:45 PM, Fross, Michael wrote:
> Hi Jean.  Let me try to better explain my issue.
> 
> On most days, I download QFX files from my Checking and Credit Card 
> accounts and import them.  In this way I clear transactions and I can 
> see what's going on.  The next day I'll do so again, and the importer 
> skips those that have already been matched per your comment.s  I've been 
> doing this for years and it's worked well.
> 
> Since I updated to V4 the transactions that would have matched 
> previously now come up with "Match Missing!" in the importer.  I don't 
> want to add them as they would create duplicates.  Transactions that are 
> not cleared seem to be able to be matched.  But those that are 
> previously cleared get the "Match Missing!" issue.
> 
> Now, based on what you told me, the QFX file for a problem transaction 
> has a FITID that is one higher than the ONLINE_ID in the gnucash file 
> for the same transaction.  So the Match Missing items seems to be correct.
> 
> If I duplicate the transaction, delete the original, it matches which I 
> assume is because there is not an ONLINE_ID associated with the new one.
> 
> What I don't understand is if there is an issue with GNUCash, which is 
> why I asked if others are having the same issue, or if it is/was an 
> issue with CITIBANK QFX files.  If they changed the FITID for some 
> reason that would cause this.  Since no one else has said they are 
> having the issue, I'm assuming this is not a GNUCash issue.
> 
> Does that better explain the issue?
> 
> I really appreciate the time to respond and help me through this.
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:50 PM Jean Laroche <ripngo at gmail.com 
> <mailto:ripngo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     There's a misunderstanding here.
>     This is what GC does:
>     - It looks at the OFX transaction, which always has an FITID.
>     - IF GC sees this FITID in one of the register transactions, it skips
>     the OFX transaction, because it's already been imported (when a
>     transaction gets imported from the ofx, the online_id is copied into
>     the
>     register transaction, that's how GC remembers it's already imported the
>     transaction).
>     - If the FITID is not found in the register, GC assumes that this is a
>     new transaction and attempts to match it with existing transactions in
>     your register. BUT:
>          . It only looks at register transactions that have NO FITID (i.e.,
>     register transactions that you entered manually, typically)
>          . Among those, it looks for transactions that match pretty closely
>     for the date and the amount.
>          . It picks the one with the highest matching score, if that
>     score is
>     above a user-adjustable threshold.
> 
>     So in the case you outline below, if the register transaction has the
>     same FITID as your ofx transaction, the ofx transaction will NOT be
>     imported (it will be just skipped).
> 
>     I think I don't quite understand the problem you're having. Is it that
>     you're importing OFX transaction and they're not matching register
>     transactions that you entered manually?
>     Or is it that they're being imported despite the fact they were
>     imported
>     previously?
> 
>     J.
> 
>     On 7/27/20 1:31 PM, Fross, Michael wrote:
>      > Thanks Jean / John for your thoughts.  There is a register entry
>     that
>      > matches, IMHO, very closely.   I increased the Match Display
>     Threshold
>      > from 1 to 3, and then to 6 (which appears to be the highest value
>      > allowed.)  Every transaction from the import says "Match Missing."
>      >
>      > Digging around a bit, for the transaction in question, the QFX file
>      > contains the FITID of 202007210003:
>      >
>      > <STMTTRN>
>      > <TRNTYPE>CREDIT
>      > <DTPOSTED>20200721120000
>      > <TRNAMT>54.00
>      > <FITID>202007210003
>      > <NAME>ACH Electronic Credit
>      > <MEMO>Expenses
>      > </STMTTRN>
>      >
>      > My GNUCash file contains, for the same transaction has the online id
>      > being 202007210002
>      >          <split:slots>
>      >            <slot>
>      >              <slot:key>online_id</slot:key>
>      >              <slot:value type="string">202007210002</slot:value>
>      >            </slot>
>      >
>      > The online_ID is ...002 instead of ...003.  Changing the QFX file to
>      > match the online_id value seemed to work.  Now my question is why
>     would
>      > this be different for *lots* of transactions.  Everything worked
>      > normally in v3, but this would not have changed as part of the
>     release.
>      > I'll check a few more problem transactions and see if I can detect a
>      > pattern.  Perhaps Citibank is paying games....
>      >
>      > Michael
>      >
>      > On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:57 PM jean laroche <ripngo at gmail.com
>     <mailto:ripngo at gmail.com>
>      > <mailto:ripngo at gmail.com <mailto:ripngo at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >     To get a match you have to have a transaction in the register
>     that's
>      >     sufficiently similar to the one you're importing, and that
>     has not been
>      >     imported/matched before.
>      >     In your case, it could be one of these reasons (I can't see
>     the image):
>      >     - There's no matching transaction in your register (no existing
>      >     transaction has amount close, and a date close to the
>     imported one)
>      >     - There's a matching transaction but it's already been
>     matched to an
>      >     imported transaction at some point so it's not available to
>     be matched
>      >     to the new imported one.
>      >     - There's a matching transaction that's available, but the
>     match score
>      >     is below the threshold that allows the transaction to be
>     shown as a
>      >     potential match. Too large a date mismatch can cause that.
>      >
>      >     Can you check whether you're in one of these 3 cases? If
>     you're in case
>      >     3, you can lower the minimum matching threshold in the
>     preferences and
>      >     see if that helps.
>      >     J.
>      >
>      >
>      >     On 7/26/2020 2:44 PM, John Ralls wrote:
>      >      > If there's no matching transaction already in the account then
>      >     there's nothing to clear. In that case only adding or not
>     makes sense.
>      >      >
>      >      > Regards,
>      >      > John Ralls
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >> On Jul 26, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Fross, Michael
>     <michael at fross.org <mailto:michael at fross.org>
>      >     <mailto:michael at fross.org <mailto:michael at fross.org>>> wrote:
>      >      >>
>      >      >> Hello all,
>      >      >>
>      >      >> I sent this earlier this month and didn't see any reply so I
>      >     thought I
>      >      >> would try again.   Has anyone else seen these issues?  I use
>      >     Citibank and
>      >      >> perhaps it's a Citibank issue, but I did not have this
>     problem
>      >     on v2 or v3.
>      >      >>
>      >      >> Thanks all.  I appreciate the help.
>      >      >>
>      >      >> Michael
>      >      >>
>      >      >>
>      >      >> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 9:48 AM Fross, Michael
>     <michael at fross.org <mailto:michael at fross.org>
>      >     <mailto:michael at fross.org <mailto:michael at fross.org>>> wrote:
>      >      >>
>      >      >>> Hello all,
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> I typically download QFX files from my banks every day
>     or two,
>      >     import them
>      >      >>> to clear them in Gnucash.  Worked great.  However, ever
>     since
>      >     upgrading to
>      >      >>> v4, the importer seems to have trouble matching.  Most
>     of the
>      >     imported
>      >      >>> transactions are listed in the importer as (A)dd, but
>     when I select
>      >      >>> (C)lear for them it says match missing.
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> This has occurred for several accounts.  Here is a simple
>      >     credit card
>      >      >>> example, although for my checking account, there are dozens
>      >     like this.  The
>      >      >>> top portion shows the register with the Sprint bill
>     cleared.
>      >     The date,
>      >      >>> amount, and name (mostly) match.
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> [image: image.png]
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> Not sure if there is just something wrong with my setup or
>      >     not.  Perhaps a
>      >      >>> bug?  Are others experiencing this?  Any ideas to get the
>      >     matcher matching
>      >      >>> again?  Something need to get cleared out?
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> For those of us in the US, happy Independence Day. 
>     Thank you
>      >     all for your
>      >      >>> assistance.
>      >      >>>
>      >      >>> Michael
>      >      >>>
>      >      >> <image.png>_______________________________________________
>      >      >> gnucash-user mailing list
>      >      >> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>     <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org> <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>     <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>>
>      >      >> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>      >      >> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>      >      >> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>      > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>      >      >> -----
>      >      >> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>      >      >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>      >      > _______________________________________________
>      >      > gnucash-user mailing list
>      >      > gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>     <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>>
>      >      > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>      >      > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>      >      > If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>      > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>      >      > -----
>      >      > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>      >      > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>      >
>      >     _______________________________________________
>      >     gnucash-user mailing list
>      > gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>     <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>>
>      >     To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>      > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>      >     If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>      > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>      >     -----
>      >     Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>      >     You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>      >
> 


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list