Xero Personal note imports, better live feed import options, account ordering

Xero Personal note imports, better live feed import options, account ordering
Blog post · 18 Oct, 2013

We’ve introduced a few updates which should make importing and managing accounts within PocketSmith a bit more straightforward.

Contents

• 1 Xero Personal notes
• 2 Better live feed import options
• 3 Account ordering
• 4 New server
• 5 How to re-import your transactions with notes using Xero Express

Xero Personal notes

PocketSmith’s Xero Express feature now imports notes, to accommodate the Xero Personal feature update on October 9. We’ve also made small updates to the Xero Express interface to make the steps easier to read.

If you’ve already imported your transactions and want your notes, you will need to delete the previously-imported transactions before using Xero Express again to bring your notes over. A step-by-step is provided for you at the bottom of this article.

Better live feed import options

Live feeds that are subsequently attached to imported accounts (e.g. via Xero Express, or Mint Express) typically overwrite weeks (if not months) of categorised transactions and renamed merchants.

PocketSmith’s Live Feed feature now detects the date of the latest transaction in an account, and sets this as the date from which Live Feed transactions are imported in the “Import from” field. You can also edit this to determine a start date of your choosing. This means that if you’re coming over from another personal finance application, you can keep as many of your previous transactions without the Live Feed overwriting your history.

Updated Live Feed options

Select the ‘Delete overlapping transactions’ option to ensure that any existing transactions beyond the “import from” date are overwritten, removing duplicates. You can use this to make sure that no transactions are missed (the existing import may not have contained all the transactions on its last day) by changing the ‘Import from:’ date to a day or two earlier, and checking this option before clicking ‘Assign account’.

Account ordering

This is an interim solution for users wanting to order their accounts. We now have a basic implementation of this, available in the Edit Account screen.

Where to set the order for an account

Simply enter the order number in here, and your accounts will be prioritised where listed (for example on the Dashboard - which will require a page refresh, in the Bank Statements sidebar, and Manage Account slideout). We will have a better solution for this when the Account Summary feature goes live.

New server

We’ve moved up from our two-year old servers, and PocketSmith will be pretty responsive across the board. We hope you’re feeling the difference!

How to re-import your transactions with notes using Xero Express

This assumes that you have already imported your accounts from Xero Personal and linked them to your bank via the Live Feed service.

If you would like to keep the categories you have set up in PocketSmith:

1. Rename the accounts that you previously imported from Xero Personal. This is because Xero Express will re-populate any accounts according to the names found in the export, resulting in duplicates. Head to Bank Statements > Manage Accounts & Import Transactions; click ‘Edit’ beside an account, then rename the account (e.g. “Westpac Savings” to “Westpac Savings OLD”).
2. When you have renamed all the accounts you with to re-import, head to Xero Express
3. Follow the instructions to download all your transactions from Xero Personal again.
4. Upload the CSV export into Xero Express, and follow the steps.
5. Go to the Live Feeds interface, unlink each feed from the ‘OLD’ account and re-link it to its re-imported account, while making any necessary adjustments using the “Import from” and “Delete overlaps” options.
6. Delete the ‘OLD’ accounts.

You’re deleting the ‘OLD’ accounts as the last step to preserve any Merchant categorisation done in PocketSmith since the first import. As such, please bear in mind that these steps are not necessary if you want to keep all your Xero Personal export transactions leading up to present day. If this is the case, you may simply want to start over.

If you prefer to start over:

1. To delete all your accounts at once, Head to Preferences > Reset your account > Delete all transaction accounts > Delete the selected items. Deleted accounts are simply un-linked from their feeds, so you don’t need to re-authenticate with your banks.
2. Go to Xero Express.
3. Follow the instructions to download all your transactions from Xero Personal again.
4. Re-link your accounts to the Live feed, with an appropriate ‘Import from:’ date.

Please get in touch if you’re unsure about any of the steps here, we’ll be very happy to help!