Bank Statement Import is frustrating

More fun over at page 2 of my import rules.

This is for a new customer which I've just recommended to you guys. The import tool is awesome, I said. No, I've not used it with natwest before, it should be fine...

Hi Daniel

Can I firstly say that this would seem to be more a problem associated with the way in which Natwest exports its data than with how CBs handles imports, which work perfectly OK with the many banks I use.

Having said that I did have something similar with a particular type of transaction once, filled with loads of code first but then all you need to do in the rule is to pinpoint the specific saerch text that you're looking for, in my case it was the company name, ie exclude all the other common data in the search field.

If this is not possible then, if importing from a CSV, can you do something in Excel first to better specify the description narrative, before importing? Copying & pasting in a set description that the tool can use is relatively quick.

Finally, and probably most importantly, you can turn off automatic rule creation if you want to in the "Bank & Import tool" Toggle page in Settings.

Hope that helps.

Perfect! Perhaps the support agent at clearbooks that I was speaking to didn't know that auto rule creation could be disabled, because the response I got was basically "that's the system, you've just got to live with it".

In addition this isn't just a Natwest thing, Santander also does this but its first nine characters are "CARD PAYM" and as you can see this would also result in a lot of nonsensical rules being created.

Thanks Daniel - the auto rule can be both a blessing and a curse but at least you can switch it on or off.

Always worth the occasional scan of Money>Import rules to see the rules set up by you (user) and ClaerBooks (system). Ironically I've just looked at my own and of the 8 pages worth half are system! Still most are one-offs so not a worry but if you see any there that are worth keeping, you can edit them and turn them into a "user" rule.