Quick answer: Goodbudget imports new transactions going forward. The exact timing of when new transactions will import into your budget depends on your particular bank and on the schedule it sends information to Goodbudget, but most banks do this within 1-3 days.
With Goodbudget Premium, you’re able to link your Goodbudget Accounts with your real-life ones so transactions are automatically imported.
Here’s how much transaction data you can expect to get when you link your bank account and when it might show up.
Goodbudget generally imports new transactions going forward
After your Goodbudget Account is linked, Goodbudget will sync down the most recently cleared transaction from your bank so that you know the connection is working.
Going forward, Goodbudget will sync new transactions for you to categorize and confirm into Envelopes after they’ve cleared in your bank first.
Goodbudget will also preview transactions that are still pending in your bank by syncing them into your budget. These transactions cannot be edited or assigned to Envelopes since they have not been finalized by your bank.
When to expect your imported transactions
After you make a purchase, expect to see the transaction appear in Goodbudget with a [Pending] status shortly after. Within a few business days of making that same purchase, the pending transaction will be updated into a final version that you can categorize and into your Envelopes.
The exact timing of when pending or cleared transactions import into your Goodbudget depends on your particular bank and on the schedule in which they send new information to Goodbudget. Your pending and cleared transactions may arrive at the same time, or separately. Additionally, your pending transactions may be removed from your budget at a different time than when your cleared transactions arrive. Banks generally send updates about once a day.
If you plan to manually record your transactions so that your Envelope and Account balances are up-to-date while you wait for your automatic import, use the Goodbudget’s Match tool to merge those manual entries with the imports once they sync down.
Transactions aren’t showing up after several days
If it’s been a few days since you’ve made some purchases and none of the transactions have shown up in Goodbudget, you can try re-linking your account and checking your bank settings to make sure you’ve enabled third-party access to your bank.
Q: Can I get more data?
Goodbudget will only import new transactions going forward. If your Account is new and doesn’t have any data, you can manually import older transactions by downloading your recent transaction activity from your bank and uploading it to Goodbudget.
