Or they are using us to Beta test? 
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Still your plan. We are wavering.
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@becky Please add my vote for this as well. Just upgraded to get bank sync, expecting those transactions would come in just as they did when importing a quicken or csv file, letting me confirm any matches with manually entered transactions and otherwise drag over and select the envelope(s) (I also love how the import function auto-fills the envelope when it recognizes similar transactions from the past). I think treating the bank sync transactions the same as when imported from files would also solve another problem Iāve seen reported, which is dealing with transfers from one account to another. That has always worked properly in the import, but is now creating duplicate transactions from bank sync.
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Thank you all for giving us your feedback and voicing your concerns! Bank Sync is a huge feature set, and weāre listening and distilling all of the feedback weāre getting ā the feedback weāre getting from you here on this thread and from those who are not.
It sounds like most of you folks are pretty proactive budgeters. Which is great! Youāre exactly the budgeter that Goodbudget has been designed for thus far. You enter your transactions relatively close to point-of-sale so that your Envelope and Account balances are as up-to-date as possible. You like to schedule your transactions to help make things a little more hands-off. Etc.
As such, you want a syncing feature that helps you catch transactions that might have fallen through the cracks, or helps you reconcile your balances at the end of the month.
While that totally makes sense, thatās not what we designed Bank Sync for. We intentionally designed Bank Sync for folks for whom manually entering transactions is a barrier to budgeting.
Because we know this is a shift from what weāve been providing so far, we decided that weād keep the existing Plus plan available for those of you who want to continue manually entering transactions, and doing side-by-side matching with the existing import process, and then offer Bank Sync on its own plan level for folks who want to sync all of their data.
To back up a little, when we first considered Bank Sync, we imagined that there would be matching capabilities. In fact, our first rounds of Alpha testing included a version of Bank Sync that had some matching capabilities.
One of the learnings we took away from Alpha testing was that the matching features we had developed so far were not actually serving customers the way they needed and in fact, created more problems than they solved. We would have needed to spend a lot more time working out the issues with those matching features before they would be good enough to release.
When we moved to Beta and Gamma testing, we learned that Bank Sync without matching capabilities was serving customers well ā they told us that Bank Sync was meeting their needs. So we decided to ship Bank Sync without matching functionality, because the people who wouldnāt be able to budget without Bank Sync were actually able to get their budgets going.
Now thatās not to say weāre going to leave Bank Sync as is and never make enhancements or fixes. We certainly will, and weāll talk more about that below. But we hope that clarifies why we decided to move forward with rolling out Bank Sync without matching functionality.
We know that this might be disappointing to some of you, but weāre continuing to prioritize making Bank Sync work better for folks who are not primarily manually entering their transactions. And we want to be clear so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not Bank Sync is going to work for you.
- If youād like to continue manually entering transactions and doing side-by-side matching with the existing import process, then Plus is your best bet. If so, weāre happy to switch you back ā just shoot us an email.
- If youād like to use Bank Sync and are fine with not manually entering data or deleting duplicates, then Premium is the way to go.
If youād like to see what we have planned for the near future, check out this blog post. There, youāll see what we plan to work on in the coming months, what we plan to work on after that, and some items that we donāt plan to get to anytime soon (or ever).
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Okay, I will stay on Plus for now. Please let us know when the matching is ready to go. It seems like this thread has more traction than others. Iām wondering who you used for testers because they were not long-time users. I donāt think long-time users would be okay without the matching feature. Can the match feature be escalated with a poll? How do you folks decide priorities?
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Thank you for the background explanation on the Bank Sync feature. I do see it as something that would be beneficial. I am a long-time user and had wondered about a syncing feature. Iām glad to see it added as it does save time from having to input things manually, especially when budgeting with a spouse who might be as vigilant entering their purchases.
Matching transactions would help with the Bank Sync feature. Could this be added as a toggle feature? It sounds like it is already possible from your description Alpha/Beta testing. Allowing it to be turned on or off would allow both kinds of budgeters to enjoy the feature.
Edit: Also wanted to say that I love the forum! Iām a huge fan of the Discourse software; Iām an Open Source software person. Love that GoodBudget is using it, itās a feature rich program.
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You realize you taught us how to input transactions for years; otherwise, the budget would not be current. I canāt understand who tested for you that made you folks turn this matching off. Please provide the tech notes on this decision. I am also in IT, and I canāt believe this happened.
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Iāve been a huge fan of Goodbudget for years, and Iād imagine their acting in good faith here. Iām personally disappointed (I was so excited when I saw this announced!) but Iām sure it is a mix of tech, strategy, and business factors (e.g., trying to capture some of the customers who just left Mint? just speculating). We donāt have access to GBās user base, there are likely many more users than the power users here who post on the forum, for whom bank sync without matching is perfect.
Either way, while Iām disappointed, Iām glad theyāre letting us go back to the way we were before. Weāre no worse off than we were two-ish months ago (minus any time putting our accounts back in order, which is an inconvenience).
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Thank you for explaining the rationale. As we have worked with the Premium more and more, we are figuring it out and coming up with ways to make it work. However, the transfer from one ACCOUNT to another can be tricky and if you are not careful, you can end up with multiple duplicate entries for each transfer.
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I have been doing āImport Bank Transactionsā pretty regularly for years. When I first saw the Bank Sync, I thought it would work similar to that. I was even expecting the āConfirm Transactionsā to be pretty similar to the Import Bank Transactions interface / feature set.
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Itās clear to me that the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma testers were likely either users that have little to no activity based on their usage data or individuals that have not used the service at all and want to offer a feature set that will allow them to actively engage with the platform. For me personally, I have found this feature a godsend because my wife is awful about putting in her transactions. This allows me to go in, easily delete the ones Iāve already put in myself and confirm with my wife those that are missing. This makes monthly reconciliation so much easier. I do agree that adding functionality for matching would be great, but this is a good first step for users like myself.
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Being a user for 10 plus years is why this is so disappointing. It was very hard to train ourselves to diligently put in transactions immediately after spending. I was a user asking for bank sync, then we got this. Did you ask any veteran users to participate in the testing? Iām still waiting for the explanation of why it was tested and then turned off. It was the back bone of the current method.
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One of the things that would help reduce duplicates for me is if Pending transactions showed up too. I understand the added complexity here (amounts can change, for example) but there would be less things for me to manually import when I reconcile accounts each pay period if the Pending transactions were synced to GoodBudget already.
Iām a 15ish year veteran power user and somehow I missed this debacle entirely. Didnāt even know Premium or Bank Sync existed until people started complaining about it 
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Can this be moved up the list? Or at least get an update?
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Karina,
I understand we may not fit exactly what the type of budgeter for which this new feature was designed.
The issue Iām having is that I paid for this new feature and now Iām unable to go back to my original paid subscription.
Had I known the extra work I would be making to use this new feature then I wouldnāt have paid for it and Iād be using the old subscription.
Please advise me on how I can just go back to the previous paid subscription that is no longer available to me that only cost me $45 / year.
Iām sure there are others here who would also appreciate this information. Like many here Iāve been a customer since pretty much the beginning (04/14).
thanks,
Mark
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I have the same the problem. I think the problem is it not matching the name you entered compared to the bank.
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Thanks for your post! Iām happy to help revert your subscription back to Plus. Just shoot us an email to support@goodbudget.com.
I upgraded from the free tier specifically for this Bank feature. I was completely blindsided by the non-matching ability and it DESTROYED my budget/account. I had to get support to downgrade my account back to the free tier and start all over 
I have used previous budget apps that were able to sync and match so my expectations were high. Hopefully this will get resolved soon and I will be back on the subscription!
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Is there any progress on this issue? I just received an email encouraging me to upgrade. I would not be targeting customers without the match feature.
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