Check My Bank: Asking Your Bank for New Transactions and Your Balance

Your bank feed normally keeps itself up to date on its own. Stripe re-reads a connected account roughly once a day and Argenta stores whatever comes back. Most of the time you never have to think about it.

Sometimes that is not fast enough. You can be looking at a deposit on your own bank's website that has not reached Argenta yet, and waiting a day is not much of an answer. Check My Bank is the button that goes and asks straight away.

Where it is

Open General Financials > Chart of Accounts and click Account Register on the account you are reconciling, then click Reconcile Account. If that account has a bank connected, Argenta opens on the Match Your Bank tab, and Check My Bank sits at the right-hand end of the From Your Bank heading. Accounts with no bank linked do not show the button, because there is nothing to ask.

Check My Bank sits on the From Your Bank heading, over at the right.

What it does

One press asks your bank two things: anything new it is holding, and what your balance is now. It does that for every live connection on the account and stores what comes back. It waits a moment for the answer so you see a result rather than a promise.

The balance it brings back is the figure on the Enter Your Bank Balance line, under From your bank. That line also says how old your bank says the figure is, and pressing Check My Bank is what asks for a newer one.

A short message then appears under the heading telling you what happened:

• Your bank had 1 new transaction. The count is however many arrived. They are on the screen straight away, ready to reconcile.
• Your balance is up to date. Your bank gave a newer reading than the one you were looking at, and the figure on the balance line has moved. This can appear on its own, or on the end of one of the transaction messages, since the two halves are answered separately.
• Your bank has nothing new. Argenta already had everything your bank is holding. This is a real answer, not a failure, and it is worth knowing when a figure looks wrong.
• Your bank is still answering. This page picks it up on its own. Some banks take longer than others, and either half can be the slow one. Nothing is lost and you do not need to press the button again. Anything that arrives afterwards, a transaction or a newer balance, is collected for you.
• Your bank was checked a moment ago. Give it a minute and try again. There is a short wait between one check and the next. Pressing again does no harm, it just means giving it a minute.
• We could not reach your bank just now. Try again in a minute. A momentary problem reaching the bank. Nothing is broken and nothing is lost.
• Your bank ended this connection. Link it again and we can check for new transactions. The connection has to be set up again before Argenta can ask your bank anything.

When to use it

• You can see a payment at your bank that is not in Argenta yet.
• The balance on the reconcile screen is older than you want to work against.
• You are reconciling and the difference looks like a transaction that has not come through.
• Money moved today and you would rather not wait for the morning read.

Worth knowing

• It brings transactions and a balance in. It does not reconcile anything and it does not create a deposit for you, so carry on reconciling exactly as you would with any other line.
• A balance your bank could not answer for costs you nothing else. The transactions half stands on its own, and its message still tells you what it found.
• If you have typed your own figure into Enter Your Bank Balance, that is the one the reconciliation uses. Argenta stops filling the field in once there is a typed figure in it, and the bank's own reading stays on the line underneath where you can still see it.
• Nothing is duplicated. A transaction Argenta already holds is matched to what it has rather than added again.
• Argenta asks your bank once each morning on its own, so a reading is usually waiting when you open the page. This button is how you ask at any other moment.

See also Connecting Your Bank with the Bank Feed and How to Reconcile Bank Accounts in Argenta.