Always accurate downloading of transactions, an impossible task?

Chris_QPW

There is a basic assumption with downloading of transactions that the financial institution is always providing consistent data. Whereas I have always found my financial institutions to be correct "eventually" I can certainly find times when they (their own websites) are in an inconsistent state.

I have caught Chase like this several times, and then today I went to reconcile my Citi credit card and couldn't because it didn't show the payment that was processed today. Going to their website I see the same inconsistency. I think I have seen this before, know that it will resolve itself, and just ignored it.

Here is the example.

Quicken shows exact the same pending transactions and the same posted balance. Here is the online balance for Quicken:

What is missing from this picture?

Today is the day of the automatic payment, which is $342.44, you will notice that it doesn't show up in the pending transactions. That is "wrong", but maybe the rest is consistent with the "not done payment"? Parts of the information has it credited and parts not. It isn't on either the pending or posted lists, but the "Credit Remaining" and current balance already has it accounted for.

And in Quicken:

So, Quicken can be 100% in sync with the financial institution, and still not be able to reconcile the account.

I have seen similar things in my Chase account.

I know from experience that later tonight this will all clear up, but clearly if one wants an "always consistent" view of their finances they aren't going to get it from these financial institutions.