Merge redundant connected accounts? Duplicate after re-adding to fix account that stopped updating

Matt_F

My bank account stopped importing transactions earlier this month. In an attempt fix it, I added the account again. This got new transactions to show up as expected, but I then had two copies of the same account linked in the Banking > Connected Accounts section, so I deleted the old one.

Now I still have two sets of accounts (one current, one deleted but still with transaction history) that show in various screens, such as in Reports, the account filter on the Transactions page, etc

Is there a way to merge these accounts so everything is clean again? I don't want to delete the history of the old account, of course. Thanks!

ejwllc

I am having the same issue with my Azlo account that caused you to duplicate the account! It shows it's an active "connected account", but doesn't import any transactions, and does not show a balance on the "Connected Accounts" page at all. I've been nervous to remove the account or re-add the account for the reasons you describe.

JulianP

Hey there @Matt_F and @ejwllc !

I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with your bank connections. Typically when a bank makes changes to their API or online banking Wave might begin importing duplicate transactions. Some users have even reported seeing duplicate business accounts appear in their Chart of Accounts which is occurring in each of your cases.

There isn’t a built-in way to merge multiple accounts in Wave, but I can definitely help you get this sorted out.

First go to Accounting > Chart of Accounts, and identify which accounts you need to work on. Click the pen icon to the right of each of those duplicate accounts to edit the name and add a distinguishing feature (e.g. Account1) so you can tell them apart. Once this is done, go to your Transactions page and filter for each account in order to figure out which is the account you’d prefer to keep, likely the active connection, or the account with the most recently uploaded transactions.

Filter your Transactions for each old account, select all transactions, then use the bulk categorize tool to re-categorize the transactions to your preferred account. You can read more about how to save time with bulk categorization here.

Once you have all your transactions successfully associated with your preferred account, go to the Accounting > Chart of Accounts and click the pen icon to the right of the unwanted accounts and select the option that says Archive. As long as there are no transactions associated with an archived account, it will disappear off your Chart of Accounts.

ejwllc

It looks like Azlo's bank connection with Wave has been fixed on my end. Thanks for giving my concern some attention!

Matt_F

@JulianP said:

First go to Accounting > Chart of Accounts, and identify which accounts you need to work on. Click the pen icon to the right of each of those duplicate accounts to edit the name and add a distinguishing feature (e.g. Account1) so you can tell them apart. Once this is done, go to your Transactions page and filter for each account in order to figure out which is the account you’d prefer to keep, likely the active connection, or the account with the most recently uploaded transactions.

Filter your Transactions for each old account, select all transactions, then use the bulk categorize tool to re-categorize the transactions to your preferred account. You can read more about how to save time with bulk categorization here.

Once you have all your transactions successfully associated with your preferred account, go to the Accounting > Chart of Accounts and click the pen icon to the right of the unwanted accounts and select the option that says Archive. As long as there are no transactions associated with an archived account, it will disappear off your Chart of Accounts.

Wow, what a great way to handle this issue! I just ran through this and it worked great.

Interestingly, when I selected all transactions on the old account, clicked Edit, and then selected Account under what to change, there was a warning saying that one of the transactions couldn't be modified. After hitting Apply, I didn't receive any warnings or errors like I expected and the old account had no remaining transactions on it. I wonder if one of the transactions which was split into payments for two invoices was the cause, and got handled normally.

Thanks for this suggestion - I'm glad the solution didn't involve keeping an old account around, having transactions split across accounts, or losing my transaction history! 💙