Trend summary excludes some credits?

[AngelaM]

My budget and transaction category totals for seem to aggregate correctly. (I was auditing my Shopping category.) However, when I look at the pie chart Trend Summary, it shows that I spend A LOT more.

I figured out a couple reasons why.
1. One merchant posts returns with a different description from purchases. E.g. Macy's Purchase vs Macy's Return. None of my returns showed up in my Trend Summary. When I change the descriptions for both Macy's Purchase and Macy's Return to the same description, Macy's, it is fine. I will see the returns included in my Shopping trend subtotal. My spending is a net positive.

2. I received a check that I marked as Shopping. Someone was paying me back for something. This is not included in my Shopping trend total at all.

This makes me think that if a "Merchant" or Description sums up to a debit, it will not show up in your trend summary. Has anyone else experienced this?

This makes the Trend Summary page useless for me and forces me to use the Home Page's Budget vs Spend summary which is a poor substitute.

[mburdsall]

Mint does not handle net expenses in the Where you spend section.

[AngelaM]

Well, I think it doesn't handle them if the net expense for a Merchant total is a credit. If I relabeled the Deposit Check w/a Merchant name that I have a $500 expense with and the check is $100, then a $400 net expense will show for that Merchant name. It just seems inconsistent that the labeling of a Merchant on a transaction can dictate whether it's included in the Where You Spend section.

Does it make sense to you why mint works this way? I'd be interested in its justification. I just haven't see the value of this rationale yet. Thanks!

Mint does not handle net expenses in the Where you spend section.

[mburdsall]

No. the pie chart for does not reflect credits to the category. The other problem I have is the merchant will appear multiple times on the right hand side if you have multiple categories with the merchant. This is confusing since the category is not shown in the table. If they are not going to show the category then Mint should not subtotal on merchant and category.

[AngelaM]

Yeah, the pie chart limitation makes sense. One possible solution can be to display the chart w/positive values as it currently does, BUT

1. the data table should list all Merchant subtotals, neg and pos, as you mentioned
2. the chart should have some designation to refer users to the table whenever there are neg value merchants and
3. subtotals, totals for categories should always be the same. I don't care if the sum of the pie doesn't match to the shown "slices." I'd rather the sum of the pie represent the actual sum of transactions.

It probably means not using the chart server w/default settings, but worth it to make changes imo.

[mburdsall]

Another pet peeve of my with the table is that they list merchant totals based on Merchant and category. Therefore if you visit a store twice and store one transaction under the clothing category and another transaction under food category you will see the merchant twice in the table. The peeve is that they do not show the category in the table therefore you see the merchant twice with the amount and count, category is not shown.