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Reconnecting a Bank and Fixing Duplicate Accounts

This guide is for the moment a bank reconnect leaves you with two ledger accounts for the same bank account, one holding your history and one receiving the live feed. It tells you which repair fits your situation and walks through each one. The repair never involves disconnecting the bank or connecting it again.

Reconnecting your bank without a copy · 1:23

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Every so often, your bank asks you to sign in again, and your feed stops until you do. Most of the time, the Reconnect button on the banking card is all you need. You sign in again, and the same connection carries on into the same ledger account. But sometimes the old connection can't be renewed, and you have to connect your bank again from scratch. That makes a brand new connection, and the provider gives each bank account a new ID. Fiskl can't tell that it's the same account you had before. Left to itself, it creates a new ledger account and imports your history into it again. That's how you end up with two accounts and duplicate transactions. So when Fiskl asks where each account should go, choose the one you already have. Leave it on Create new account only if the bank account is new to Fiskl. Select Proceed, and the new bank account points to your original ledger account. As your history comes through again, Fiskl skips every transaction the account already holds. Only the new ones land, and your reconciliations stay exactly as they were. One bank account, one ledger account, one history.
Do not disconnect, and do not connect the bank again

Disconnecting a connection only stops its feed. It does not merge the two accounts, and it does not remove the copy. Connecting the bank again from scratch creates a third account unless you pick an existing account in the linking dialog. If you already have two accounts, go straight to Repairing Two Accounts That Already Exist.

How a Bank Feed Relates to a Ledger Account​

Each connected bank account writes its transactions into exactly one ledger account in your Chart of Accounts. There is no separate inbox. The bank feed and the ledger account are the same list of transactions, and your reconciliations belong to that ledger account.

When a bank is connected again through Yodlee or Salt Edge, the provider issues new identifiers for the connection and for each bank account. Fiskl has no way to match the new identifiers to the account you connected before, so unless you tell it where the feed belongs, it creates a new ledger account and imports your history into it again. The result is two accounts with the same name:

  • The original: holds your full history, your categorisation and your reconciliations. Its feed has stopped.
  • The copy: receives the live feed and a fresh import of recent history. It usually has no reconciliations.

Everything below is about getting back to one account without losing either the feed or the history.

Which Situation Are You In?​

Find your situation in the first column and follow the section it points to. Only one of these needs a repair.

What you seeWhat to doSection
The banking card shows a connection or consent warning and a Reconnect buttonSelect Reconnect on the card. The feed keeps writing to the same ledger account and no copy is created.Renewing an Expired Connection
You have to connect the bank again from scratch, and the copy does not exist yetConnect, then pick your existing ledger account in the Link to your existing accounts dialog.Connecting Again Without Creating a Copy
Two ledger accounts with the same name: one has the history, the other has the live feedChoose one of the two repairs below. Do not disconnect first.Repairing Two Accounts That Already Exist
One account, but the same transactions appear twice in itUse the duplicates strip above the transaction list.Removing Duplicate Transactions

Telling the Original From the Copy​

Before you repair anything, confirm which account is which. Fiskl marks both so you can tell them apart.

  • In Accounting > Chart of Accounts, each ledger account row shows a bank badge when a bank feed writes to it, and a tick badge when it has reconciled periods. Hover over a badge for the provider, the connection name, the last refresh and the last reconciled period.
  • In Accounting > Transactions, the same two badges appear in the balance tile at the top right of the account.
  • In the duplicate review, the same two badges appear next to every account name, with a card icon for a credit card account or a wallet icon for a bank or cash account. See Removing Duplicate Transactions.
  • In Banking, each account card names the ledger account it writes to, with its account number.

The bank badge is green when the feed refreshed within the last two days, amber when it is older, and grey when the bank account or its connection is disabled. After a reconnect, the copy has a green bank badge and no tick badge. The original has a tick badge and a grey bank badge, or no bank badge at all.

Renewing an Expired Connection​

Banks ask for a fresh authorisation from time to time. This is not a reconnect in the sense of this guide, and it never creates a copy.

  1. Go to Banking.
  2. Find the account card showing the connection or consent warning.
  3. Select Reconnect.
  4. Complete your bank's authentication.

The feed continues into the same ledger account. If Reconnect is not offered and the connection is gone, follow the next section instead.

Connecting Again Without Creating a Copy​

Use this when the old connection no longer exists and you must connect the bank from scratch. Fiskl offers your existing ledger accounts before it creates anything. This works for Yodlee, Salt Edge and Stripe.

  1. Go to Banking and select Connect bank.
  2. Select your provider and complete your bank's authentication.
  3. When the provider returns your accounts, a linking dialog opens: Link to your existing accounts for Yodlee and Stripe, Connect History Account Data for Salt Edge. It lists each new bank account next to a dropdown of ledger accounts it could write to.
  4. For each account, select the ledger account that held it before. Fiskl ranks the closest matches first, and shows both the current display name and the original name the bank gave the account.
  5. Leave an account on Create new account on import only if it is genuinely new to Fiskl.
  6. Select Proceed.

The feed continues into the account you chose. Transactions it already holds are not imported again, even though the provider gives them new references on a reconnect, and your reconciliations are untouched.

The dialog lists ledger accounts of the same kind and currency as the new bank account, and only ones that do not already receive a live feed. An account still attached to the old, expired connection is offered, because that is the account you want.

tip

If you renamed "Barclays: 4421" to "Main account" last year, the dialog shows "Main account" with "Barclays: 4421" underneath, so you can recognise it either way.

Repairing Two Accounts That Already Exist​

If a reconnect has already created a copy, you have two repairs. Both end with one ledger account that has the feed and the history, and the other account archived. Neither one needs you to disconnect anything first.

Fixing a duplicate bank account · 1:13

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If a reconnect has already left you with two accounts of the same name, you can bring them back together. The original holds your history and reconciliations. The copy has the live feed. Don't disconnect to fix this. It only stops the feed, and both accounts stay. Instead, go to Banking, find the copy's card, and select Change linked account. Pick your original account, and Fiskl shows you exactly what will change before you confirm. The feed now points to your original account, and carries on from where it stopped. Transactions the original doesn't have move across. The ones it already holds are deleted from the copy. The empty copy is archived, not deleted. If you've already reconciled the copy, go the other way round. Select every transaction in the original and move it into the copy. The reconciliations move with them. The original is archived, and the copy keeps the live feed and your whole history. If any rows now appear twice, Find duplicates offers to remove the later copies. Either way, you end up with one account, with the live feed and all your history.
  • Keep the original. Point the live feed at the original account and let Fiskl archive the copy. This is the usual choice. See Repair A.
  • Keep the copy. Move the original's transactions and reconciliations into the copy, and let Fiskl archive the original. See Repair B.

How to decide:

  • Choose Repair A when the copy has no reconciliations of its own. It is quicker and keeps the account your reports already refer to.
  • Choose Repair B when the copy has already been reconciled, or when you have categorised a lot of transactions in it and want to keep that work.
  • If both accounts have reconciliations, choose Repair B. Repair A refuses to run while the copy still has reconciliations.

Repair A: Keep the Original and Point the Feed at It​

This repair moves the live feed to your original ledger account and archives the copy, in one step. The feed is not disconnected at any point.

  1. Go to Banking and find the card for the copy. It is the card whose feed refreshed recently.
  2. Select Change linked account. The dialog names the account the feed writes to now, which is useful because the copy is easy to miss in the Chart of Accounts.
  3. Select the original ledger account from the list. The account whose name best matches the bank account comes first, marked Likely match. Each account shows how many transactions it holds, its last transaction date and its reconciliations. After you select one, the list shrinks to that account so the preview appears right below it. Select Choose another to see the full list again.
  4. Read the preview before you confirm. It starts with how many transactions the original will hold afterwards, and it never deletes anything already in the original. It then lists each change, described below.
  5. If the copy holds transactions you entered by hand, the preview says so. Select the checkbox that starts Also move to take them along. Left unselected, they stay in the copy, and the copy is kept rather than archived.
  6. Select Link to followed by the original account's name to confirm.

The preview lists only the changes that apply to your accounts:

  • Moves. Transactions in the copy that the original does not have yet move into the original.
  • Duplicates. Transactions the original already holds are deleted from the copy, so nothing appears twice.
  • Transfers between the two accounts. After a reconnect, automatic matching can pair the same transaction in both accounts as a transfer between them. The copy's side of each such transfer is deleted. The original keeps its transaction, which goes back to uncategorised so you can categorise it again.
  • Opening Balance. Fiskl created the copy's Opening Balance when the copy was connected, to match the bank balance. The original already has one, so the copy's one is deleted. If the original has none, the copy's one moves across instead.
  • Locked periods. Transactions dated in a locked accounting period can be neither moved nor deleted. They stay in the copy.
  • The feed. The date after which the feed fetches new bank transactions. Nothing earlier is fetched again.
  • The copy. Whether the copy is archived once it is empty, or kept, and why.
warning

Deleted transactions cannot be restored. The preview shows This can't be undone. whenever the change deletes something, so read the counts before you confirm.

After the change, a message confirms which account the feed now writes to and how many transactions moved and were deleted. The banking card names the original ledger account, and the Chart of Accounts shows the bank badge on it. The next sync continues from the last transaction the feed delivered. If the old, expired connection still had a stale link to the original, Fiskl disconnects it as part of this step.

Fiskl refuses the change in a few cases and tells you which:

  • The chosen account already receives a live feed from another connection.
  • The chosen account is a different kind or currency from the bank account.
  • The chosen account is archived. Restore it first.
  • The copy has reconciliations of its own. Use Repair B instead.

Repair B: Keep the Copy and Move the History Into It​

This repair moves every transaction and every reconciliation from the original into the copy, then archives the original. The live feed already writes to the copy, so it is untouched.

  1. Go to Accounting > Transactions and open the original account.
  2. Select all transactions, then select Move.
  3. Select the copy as the destination.
  4. The dialog checks the move before anything happens. Because every transaction of the account is selected, it offers to move the reconciliation history as well and to archive the original once it is empty. Keep that checkbox selected.
  5. Select Move.

Transactions the copy already holds are reported as duplicates in the dialog. After the move, use the duplicates strip described below to remove the extra rows.

The reconciliation history can only travel when the copy has no reconciliation covering the same dates. If it does, the dialog says so and lists the overlapping periods. The transactions still move, but the original's reconciliations stay behind and are marked as needing attention. See Moving Transactions Between Accounts for everything the move dialog checks.

After the Repair​

  • The account you kept has the bank badge and the tick badge in Accounting > Chart of Accounts.
  • The other account is archived. It appears on the Archived tab of the Chart of Accounts and is not deleted.
  • The expired connection, if its header is still shown in Banking, now holds no accounts. You can remove it with the disconnect icon on its header. This is the only time disconnecting is part of the repair, and it happens last.
  • If the kept account shows the duplicates strip, review it as described next.

Removing Duplicate Transactions​

Fiskl finds duplicates in two ways. A bank reference match is exact: the same transaction id from the same provider in two accounts. A date, amount and name match is a suggestion, because a reconnect gives every transaction a new id, and so does a second import of the same statement.

A strip appears above an account's transaction list when another account holds rows with the same bank reference, or when another account looks like the same real bank account: a similar name, a shared account number or IBAN, or the account a reconnect left behind. The Find duplicates button in the toolbar, next to Import, opens the same review from any money account, with or without the strip.

  1. Go to Accounting > Transactions and open the account.
  2. Select Review on the strip, or Find duplicates in the toolbar.
  3. The first list shows rows that share a bank reference with another account. Each account name, at the top and in the Also in column, shows the account type icon, the bank badge and the tick badge. These show which account has the live feed and which holds the reconciliations. Hover over a shortened name to see it in full. Later copies that are neither reconciled nor linked to a payment are already selected for removal. Rows marked Original, Reconciled or Linked cannot be removed from here.
  4. Under Also compare by date, amount and name with, select the account that is the same real bank account. Fiskl marks the likely one as Suggested and lists it first, and selects it for you when it is the only suggestion. Archived accounts are listed too, marked Archived, because they still count in your books.
  5. A second list shows rows that match the chosen account by date, amount and name. These are never selected for you. Check each one before you select it.
  6. Select Remove copies.

If a reconnect imported the history a second time into the same account, the copies sit next to the originals in one account. Under Also compare by date, amount and name with, select This account (rows imported twice). The list then shows every row that repeats an earlier row of the account by date, amount and name, with the earlier row kept as the original. Two genuine identical payments on one day look the same, so check each row before you select it.

When both accounts have a live bank feed, Fiskl treats rows with different bank references as different transactions and does not list them, since a provider never delivers one transaction twice to two live feeds. When either account has no feed, or its feed has expired, rows with different references can still be the same transaction and are listed for you to judge.

The comparison is not offered for Stripe accounts, since Stripe keeps the same reference across reconnects and the reference alone is reliable there.

info

The feed refuses to import a transaction that another ledger account already holds under the same bank reference. When that happens, the banking card says how many transactions the last sync skipped and why, so nothing is dropped silently.

Common Issues​

I was told to disconnect the extra connection. Should I?

No. Disconnecting stops the feed on that connection and nothing else. The two ledger accounts stay as they are, and if you then connect the bank again you may end up with three. Use Repair A or Repair B instead. The only connection worth removing is the old, expired one, and only after the repair, when it holds no accounts.

I reconnected and chose the new account. Can I undo it?

You do not need to undo anything. The reconnect created a copy, which is exactly what the two repairs fix. Open Repairing Two Accounts That Already Exist and pick Repair A to keep your original account.

I don't see Change linked account on the banking card

The button needs bank connection permission and an active subscription. It is also hidden on disabled bank accounts. Select Reactivate on the card first, then the button appears. Make sure you are looking at the card for the copy, the one whose feed is live, not the card for the expired connection.

My original account isn't in the list of accounts to link to

The list contains ledger accounts of the same kind and currency as the bank account, under Cash and Cash Equivalents or Credit Cards, that are not archived and do not already receive a live feed. Check the currency of the original account in Accounting > Chart of Accounts, and restore it from the Archived tab if needed. If another live connection is still feeding it, that connection has to be removed first. An expired connection does not block the list.

Change linked account says the current account has reconciliations

Repair A cannot run while the copy has reconciliations of its own, because they would be left on an archived account. Use Repair B instead and move the original's history into the copy, or move the copy's transactions and reconciliations into the original with a whole-account move and keep the original.

The copy was not archived after Change linked account

Fiskl keeps the copy whenever something is left in it. The preview names the reason before you confirm:

  • Transactions you entered by hand stayed behind because the Also move checkbox was not selected. Move them from the transaction list, or run Change linked account again with the checkbox selected.
  • Transactions in a locked accounting period could not be moved. Unlock the period, move them, then archive the copy in Accounting > Chart of Accounts.
  • Products or billing items use the copy as their category. Change their category, then archive the copy.
Some transactions in the original are uncategorised after the repair

These were matched as transfers between the copy and the original, which happens when a reconnect imports the same transactions into both accounts. The repair deleted the copy's side of each transfer and returned the original's transaction to uncategorised. Categorise them again as you normally would.

The move dialog says my reconciliations will need attention

You are moving transactions that belong to reconciled periods, and the destination already has reconciliations covering the same dates, so the history cannot travel with them. The transactions still move. The affected periods are marked as needing attention and must be reviewed again in Accounting > Reconciliation. If you would rather keep the periods intact, cancel and consider Repair A, which does not touch the original's reconciliations.

The reconciliation history moved but the periods still need attention

The history moves with the transactions, but the periods keep their reconciled status only when the destination account had no transactions dated inside those periods. If it did, the balances the periods certified have changed, and Fiskl marks them for a balance check rather than guessing. Open each period in Accounting > Reconciliation and confirm the statement balance.

The duplicates strip doesn't show rows I know are duplicates

The strip counts rows that share a bank reference. Rows a reconnect imported under new references only appear once you open Review or Find duplicates and name the other account under Also compare by date, amount and name with. If both accounts have a live feed, rows with different references are not listed, because they are different transactions. If the two accounts imported the same transaction with different posting dates, or one row was renamed, they do not match either. Move or delete those rows by hand from the transaction list.

The review lists transactions that are not duplicates

This happens when the account named for the date, amount and name comparison is a different real bank account, for example two savings accounts that both post interest on the same day. Set the comparison back to Don't compare. Rows found that way are never selected for you, so nothing is removed unless you select it.

The two accounts really are different bank accounts

Then there is nothing to repair. Two accounts with similar names are only a problem when both represent the same real bank account. Rename one of them in Accounting > Chart of Accounts so they are easy to tell apart.