“We both import the same joint account and it duplicates”
A joint account imported by two people into two ledgers is one account with two histories, and they diverge quickly. The transactions are identical; everything added around them — categories, splits, notes — is not, and reconciliation is where the divergence surfaces.
Symptoms
The same transactions appear in both ledgers with different categories One person imports a period the other already imported Balances agree with the bank individually but not with each other
What actually causes it
Import history is per ledger, not per account
Duplicate detection compares against transactions in the ledger doing the import. It has no knowledge of what the other person imported, so overlapping downloads produce duplicates in one ledger while the other looks fine.
Categories are personal judgements
The same payment is groceries to one person and household to the other. Neither is wrong, but any report combining the two ledgers counts the same money under two headings.
Splits and transfers exist only where they were entered
A payment split across categories or linked as a transfer carries that structure in one ledger alone. The other keeps the flat transaction, and the two never reconcile on anything but the total.
How to fix it
- Agree who imports the joint account, and have the other work from a shared file or a report rather than importing again.
- If both must import, divide the calendar rather than the transactions: each person exports a distinct period with no overlap.
- Verify each export with the tool below before importing, so a truncated or overlapping file is caught before it reaches either ledger.
- Agree a category list in advance if the two ledgers are ever combined for reporting.
Related import problems
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