How do you keep track of pending transactions on your account?

C

Carolina

Registered User
Messages
75
Hi there
I just had a transaction appear on my current account for a laser card purchase made 5 months ago. I asked about it in my branch and they told em the retailer has 'at least 6 months' to report transactions.

There is a similar situation with cheques: write one and you never know when the recipient will present it.

So how should I keep track of pending transactions on my bank account? Should I have a notebook with a ledger of pending transactions so I know not to let my balance fall to low?

What do you do?
 
Carolina, I would strongly recommend doing banking on-line and view your account every couple of days to ensure everything is ok and fraud is identified as soon as possible.
 
Carolinais right, Roberts. internet banking does not help, as it has no knowledge of a transaction before the retailer has sent it to the back.

One idea is to keep all receipts, and cheque stubs and once a week tick off the ones that have appeared on your online banking statement. Then, you will be left with an envelope or file of the ones which have not appeared yet. This also helps you guard against fraud as you will know the origin of all transactions.
 
I have a small spreadsheet, evolved over time, to help me keep track of what has been spent, what is in-flight (LASER, cheques), and what is yet to be spent (my house insurance DD is always presented a week before payday, out of pocket cash to get me to payday).

So even if there is €500 in my account, the spreadsheet indicates what is actually available to spend, so that's the (lower) figure I work off.

Takes some time to form the habit to keep it up to date (I have it on a PDA) but it works for me.

Back of an envelope would achieve the same outcome.
 
Carolina said:
Should I have a notebook with a ledger of pending transactions so I know not to let my balance fall to low?
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Yes. Between quarterly statements I print off transactions from my online banking and add hand written transactions for those yet to appear on my account.

I have a spreadsheet (a printout of which is always in my back pocket, be lost without it) detailing my current account balance broken down into virtual pots of cash for food, petrol, utilities, yearly expenses, credit card etc. Every time money is spent, a pot and therefore my balance is reduced. The spreadsheet also details credit card transactions, income (including how income is split between pots), and yearly allocation to such things as birthdays, holidays, car tax, insurance etc. etc.
 
Carolina said:
Hi there
I just had a transaction appear on my current account for a laser card purchase made 5 months ago.
Click to expand...

How can this happen. The merchant services dial into the system every evening. There should be no more than a 4-5 day delay for funds to be taken from your account. Has anyone else experienced this? It is frightening - my husband and I use our laser cards for practically every purchase we make and don't carry any cash over 50.00 (comes from being robbed some years ago)
 
I have a similar system to Tarfhead's - I use an Excel workbook to keep track of my 'real' balances. As soon as I write a cheque or use my Laser card, I subtract that amount from my balance. That way, it doesn't matter how long it takes for that transaction to be presented to my account, as I have already disposed of that amount in my own records. I also keep track of when direct debits/standing orders are due to be deducted, so there will be no nasty surprises. Because I spend my days sitting at a computer, it's very easy to keep the workbook up-to-date by entering every transaction as soon as possible.
 
as far as cheques are concerned always fill in the stub and as previous posters have said check off the paid cheques from your statement or internet banking against the stubs. if a cheque is outstanding according to your stub there is a facility of checking this on internet to confirm it is still outstanding just in case you overlooked to mark up the stub.
 
excel spreadsheet for me too, I would be lost without it. All DD's, laser transactions, everything. One tab per month, just copy & paste from one sheet to the next with your incomings & subtract outgoings like Tarfhead
 

Something similar happened to me last year. I paid for a couple of cinema tickets and popcorn etc using my laser card at a cinema in Cork and the transaction didn't go through until four months later! Bizarre
 
MaryBM said:
How can this happen. The merchant services dial into the system every evening. There should be no more than a 4-5 day delay for funds to be taken from your account.
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That is exactly the problem, the merchant does not dial in every evening...No fault of the bank......However if the transaction does not hit your account within 180 days, you have a chargeback right on the transaction.
 
That is exactly the problem, the merchant does not dial in every evening...No fault of the bank......
Click to expand...

Similar thing happened to me just before christmas..local filling station didn't put any payments(couple of vehicles and tractor fills) through that I had used my laser card to pay with for a good couple of weeks...I queried with my own bank why the delay..the banks' customer service dept called the filling station and the reason for the delay.....''The girl who usually does it was on holiday, so we waited 'till she came back''
Good job she doesn't have to milk the cows every day
 
tillyfloss said:
''The girl who usually does it was on holiday, so we waited 'till she came back''
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Very strange!!! The Merchant Service dials into our system as opposed to them waiting for me to dial them. There seems to be different types of systems operating. Having the Merchant Service dial into your system avoids the 'delays' - still - very strange!!
 
My partner gets paid on Fridays but it doesn't show on his online banking a/c. until the next day. Is that the norm & does the bank acknowledge that the funds are in the account?
 
Thanks all, so the answer is that I need to keep track of this myself. I am going to try out using a quickoffice spreadsheet on my nokia phone.
 
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