Even Margin Blog
Duplicate Transactions in Your Books: Where They Come From and How to Clear Them
Duplicate transactions come from four places, each cleared its own way: an imported file, a pending charge, two accounts, or a bank connected twice.
The short answer
Duplicate transactions almost always come from one of four places: the same file imported twice, a pending and a completed copy of one purchase, one purchase showing on two accounts, or a bank connected twice. Find out which, and the fix follows from it.
It is worth a few minutes because a duplicate moves a real figure: a duplicated expense makes your profit look smaller than it is, and a duplicated deposit makes it look larger.
The same file imported twice
Importing a bank export that overlaps a period already in your books brings those transactions in a second time. These copies match exactly, down to the description, and the tell is that both came from a file rather than from your bank's feed.
Remove the later copies. Before the next import, check the dates the file covers against what is already there, and import only the days that are new.
A pending charge next to the completed one
A card purchase arrives first as pending and later as completed, sometimes at a slightly different amount, as when a tip is added. Your bank usually removes the pending copy once the completed one arrives.
If both are still in your books after a few days, keep the completed transaction and remove the pending one. The completed amount is the one you actually paid.
One purchase on two accounts
The same merchant, amount and date on two different accounts can be one purchase reported twice, for example a card and the bank account that pays it, or two genuinely separate charges.
This is the one to check carefully. Look at both statements before removing either, and remove a copy only once you are sure it is the same purchase.
A bank connected twice
Removing a bank connection and adding it again can bring the same period of transactions in a second time. Unlike the others, this produces many duplicates at once, across every day the two connections overlap.
Keep the copies from the connection you use now and remove the ones from the old connection, for the whole overlapping period.
How Even Margin handles it
Even Margin's Duplicate cleanup groups possible duplicates before they reach your reports, and labels each group with the reason it was flagged, using the four reasons above. You decide what to remove, and a group of two real charges stays exactly as it is.