Transaction Filters, Bulk Actions and Personal Summary Averages

Transaction Filters, Bulk Actions and Personal Summary Averages
Blog post · 26 Sep, 2012

We’re happy to announce the release of three new and oft-requested features! Transactions just got a lot more manageable for people whose transactions contain “junk” information (which is most of us), with two new tools available for bulk-management of transactions - both manually yourself in the app, and also automatically as they’re received by PocketSmith. The Personal Summary has also been enhanced to show average spending and period information, providing more depth in analysis of spending trends over time. Read on for more information!

Transaction Filters

Since we first added bank transaction file upload support in 2008, the poor descriptions supplied by most banks generally left much to be desired. Generally there was additional non-useful information in merchant descriptions, meaning repeat transactions at the same merchant had different descriptions. Because we operated on an exact-match system for applying existing categories to new transactions, it was often a necessity for people to categorize their merchants after every upload.

The new Filters feature fixes this. You can now set up “searches” which are checked against newly created transactions, and matches will have specified “actions” applied to them - renaming, categorizing and so on.

We hope that you find Filters to be useful - we certainly have! Check out the knowledge base entry which explains filters in detail and give them a shot.

Bulk Actions for Bank Statements and Merchants pages

Related to the Filters, you’re now also able to perform similar actions en-masse in the Merchants and Bank Statements pages. Just select the individual transactions or merchants you’d like to edit (rename, categorize, mark as transfer or delete) and click the “Bulk Actions” button available.

The new options for Bulk Actions available on both the Bank Statements and Merchants pages.

Personal Summary Averages

Now when you change the date range displayed for a specific category in the Personal Summary, you’ll see the right-hand-side panel display information about the averages of forecasted and actual spending against the category, relevant to that period. This has been something missing in the Personal Summary for some time, and it definitely provides some excellent information and depth to the analysis available.

So - these releases means that managing Transactions and Merchants in PocketSmith is much easier than before, and information on overall long-term budgeting success is much easier to get out the Personal Summary. As always, we welcome your feedback on all of the above!