FreeAgent bank data import - more trouble than it's worth?

[d000hg]

Open Banking sounds awesome!

Yeah since HSBC requires 2FA using the dongle, I assume this means it can ONLY work with manual imports?

Also it's SO slow. I could login to HSBC, download the file and upload it way faster. Can I just turn off the imports so I know exactly which transactions are uploaded (i.e. the ones I upload?)

[Maslins]

I'm with barclays, it just works for me, I think it does it overnight. Sometimes the previous/same days aren't there but it will catch up the next day. Not a problem as I don't need it to be real time up to date. I've never had to do it manually.

I don't know the details of every bank, but thought I'd add a bit of context to the above.

FreeAgent have bespoke direct live feeds agreed with a few banks. Barclays was the first, I believe NatWest/RBS now have something similar, may be some others too. This should be very reliable, and automatic once set up. Ie you login to FreeAgent, transactions are there (possibly a day behind).

FreeAgent uses Yodlee screen scraping for other banks. If your business bank doesn't use two factor authentication (eg Cater Allen, again, probably others) then this works seamlessly. It may be a day or so behind, but when you login to FreeAgent, transactions are there.

If your business bank does use two factor authentication, whilst more secure, it's a hindrance to this. You need to login to FreeAgent, tell it to import transactions, wait a bit whilst Yodlee does part of the login process, then do the 2 factor bit, then wait a bit longer whilst it pulls through transactions. This is how HSBC currently works, and in my opinion it's sufficiently painful that manual statement download/uploads is better.

Yodlee causes concern for some people, as you are typically breaching your bank's Ts&Cs by handing out login details to a third party. Also it's not 100% reliable, as every now and then a given bank will make changes to its online banking, which often means Yodlee won't work for a while, until they make whatever equivalent tweaks are required.

In the fairly near future, open banking should be fully in place for all banks, meaning they all follow a standard format. When this is in place, it should be much easier for software platforms like FreeAgent (of course following various security checks/whatever) to get read only data from all banks, without manual 2 factor authentication, and without screen scraping. We're not quite there yet.

[FrontEnder]

I'm with barclays, it just works for me, I think it does it overnight. Sometimes the previous/same days aren't there but it will catch up the next day. Not a problem as I don't need it to be real time up to date. I've never had to do it manually.

I also set up regular bills in freeagent, so standing orders and direct debits are automatically assigned to them. I reference the payments to myself as "dividend","payroll" etc so it automatically marks them correctly too. I'd say 90% or so of payments are marked correctly so I just need to go in and approve them. The ones that aren't are normally one of payments for something I've bought or whatever.

[mudskipper]

My Santander one just works. Happens overnight.

If I do run it manually it does take a while, but rarely that I need to do that.

[fool]

No experience with Santander, but I don't like the HSBC one. Mainly due to two factor authentication (which I appreciate is there for a good reason). I rely on the QIF transaction download/uploads.

They should all improve fairly soon. Deadline for first stage of "open banking" has already passed, missed by most of the big banks. Should be great imports very soon though...

Yeah. Cater Allen just works and is automatic, I don't do anything. Everyone should be able to do this when the present openbanking APIs. This might take a while because most of the big banks failed at delivering, but the challenger banks will likely be able to provide this quicker.

[Maslins]

No experience with Santander, but I don't like the HSBC one. Mainly due to two factor authentication (which I appreciate is there for a good reason). I rely on the QIF transaction download/uploads.

They should all improve fairly soon. Deadline for first stage of "open banking" has already passed, missed by most of the big banks. Should be great imports very soon though...

[Scruff]

Mine is with HSBC - it imports fine, but does take a lot longer than "a few minutes" - usually about 20-30 for just 5-20 transactions.

[vwdan]

Yep! Had the same problems - HSBC and my experiences were:

• Seemed to be marked as down/unavailable more often than it worked
• Took absolutely forever for it to go through using my one time keypad
• When you did eventually get it to process it was 50/50 if it returned anything or not
• And if it did return something, it didn't always reconcile

I will say that the last point, where it misses things, was quite rare but I eventually gave up on it when it missed a bunch of stuff and the manual import created a load of duplicates. Given I still need my One Time Key and needed to log onto online banking to double check the figures anyway, I found it quicker to do a manual import than faff about.

[northernladuk]

Or as today, I force an import and it just decides to miss a big chunk out so I have to spend time downloading and piecing everything together.

Oh. I don't think it's ever missed things but I haven't done a manual one for a very long time.

[d000hg]

Or as today, I force an import and it just decides to miss a big chunk out so I have to spend time downloading and piecing everything together.

[northernladuk]

I've got it set up with Santander and it's been absolutely spot on. I seem to remember I had to cancel and re-enter the details once and somewhere in by dim dark memory there was an issue updating but it seemed to resolve itself but that's it. Can't complain at all.

I log in and it's just there. I know it goes in overnight but never normally check as it's so reliable. Just checked it now and mine says

Latest Import
25 Mar 19 at 03:15
(0 imported)

EDIT : Slightly off topic but something I've notice is that draft invoices keep appearing. I do mine in batches a couple of weeks ahead and did them to the end of the financial year recently. Just noticed now that there is a draft of a duplicated invoice in there. It happened not so long ago and I just put it down to my screw up but with another one in there today I'm not so sure now.

[d000hg]

I have business accounts with both Santander and HSBC. Ever since I switched to FA, it is a PITA. I'll try to import and spend a few minutes waiting until it fails, then do a manual import of downloaded statements. On the odd occasion an import works, it ends up with duplicate rows of things I import manually.

Does it work for other people? Is there no way for it to automatically import things instead of having to login and do it periodically?