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Data Integrity and Data Delays
When ACSISS checks the balance reported by a bank against the sum of individual transactions plus the last verified balance, it aims to ensure they reconcile.
If a discrepancy is found, we wait and attempt to recollect the data to provide accurate and reconciled information.
We will recollect the data for up to six hours before inserting a balancing transaction. This may result in a delay in your data and will only affect the account(s) that have a balance discrepancy on the first collection attempt.
Sometimes transactions from NAB or Westpac appear later than expected.
These banks may send us pending transactions, but ACSISS only calculates balances using posted transactions. Pending transactions can change or be removed, so we don’t include them until they are confirmed by the bank.
If the first new transaction we receive after the last confirmed balance is still pending, we won’t add any new transactions for that day. We’ll automatically try again the next day, once the transaction has been posted.
This happens more often with Westpac than with NAB, but no action is required from you.
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Retry schedule If the integrity check fails, SISS retries up to 6 times with increasing delays: 5, 25, 30, 60, 90, and 180 minutes. Around 10–15% of accounts will experience at least one retry on any given day. |
What is a Balancing Transaction?
Our role is to ensure your data is accurate and not simply rely on the banks telling us it’s accurate, we check it. We do this by verifying all bank accounts before sharing them with you.
However, occasionally the data provided by Banks does not reconcile. When this happens ACSISS creates a Balancing Transaction, which is an identifiable adjustment to tell you exactly when the bank data did not reconcile.
ACSISS inserts a balancing transaction to ensure the running balances are accurate and consistent.
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Balancing transactions If the balance still does not reconcile after all retries, SISS generates a synthetic transaction for the difference. Around 5% of accounts may receive one on any given day — credit cards are especially prone. You can opt out via excludeBalancingTransactions=true, but running balances and EOD balances may not reconcile if excluded. |
Let's see how this works
We receive the following data from a bank:
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Bank Balance on Monday $1,325
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Less: Purchase Computer ($550)
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Bank Balance on Tuesday $907
In this scenario, this account does not reconcile. There is a difference of $132. ACSISS inserts a balancing transaction:
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Bank Balance on Monday $1,325
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Less: Purchase Computer ($550)
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Add: ACSISS Balancing Transaction $132
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Bank Balance on Tuesday $907
The addition of the ACSISS Balancing Transaction of $132 results in the account reconciling with the last verified balance and current balance provided by the bank.
The user has precise information about when the account did not reconcile and by how much.
Primary Causes of Balancing Transactions
There are several reasons why balancing transactions occur:
Inclusion of Pending Transactions
Issue: Some banks include pending transactions in their reported balances, which can lead to discrepancies.
Banks: NAB, Westpac, and UBank
Post-dated Transactions
This is the most common cause. A transaction dated in the future has been included in the current balance.
Incorrect Balances Provided by Banks
Example: NAB Credit Cards report what you have left to spend as your balance but do not provide the credit limit. This omission makes it difficult to calculate the actual balance (which should be the current balance minus the credit limit).
Additional Causes
Beyond the primary causes, other complications can affect the accuracy of balances:
Note: NAB and Westpac include pending transactions in their balances, which can cause a 1-day delay for transactions on 10–20% of accounts for those banks.