cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/11150038

I’m trying out Actual and have imported my bank’s (Sparkasse) data for my checking account via CSV. In the CSV import, I obviously had to set the correct fields and was a bit confused because Actual only has the “Payee” field while my CSVs have IBAN, BIC and a free text name (i.e. “Employer GmbH”.)

IBAN is preferable because it’s a unique ID while the free text name can be empty or possibly even change(?). (Don’t know how that works.)
OTOH, the free text name is preferable because I (as a human) can use it to infer the actual payee while the IBANs are just a bunch of numbers.

Is it possible to use IBAN aswell as the free text name or have a mapping between IBAN and a display name?

How do you handle that?

  • Unsaved5831@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    The tool is for budgeting so I would say use what is readable for you. Using IBAN for payee sounds like an overkill. You can still manage your payees and merge them later differently.

  • Piatro@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Personally I rename them to something meaningful and they get merged if there are no other references. PayPal is especially bad for completely meaningless rubbish in the payee field and they tend to be ad-hoc purchases so I don’t fiddle with them much. The category is the most relevant bit for me.