Category Archives: Money Tips

How to Download PC Financial Transactions to Use in a Spreadsheet

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PC Financial provides a quick and simple system to download your financial transaction history. You can download it to use in a spreadsheet like Excel, or to use with a financial program like Quicken or MS Money Sage 50. (It’s a little funny that PCF supports MS Money but Microsoft itself doesn’t anymore.Update March 3 2016 PCF no longer supports MS Money either. They don’t offer any direct download for Mint or other programs but you can probably import the data as comma separated values (CSV format.) There is one error in the downloaded data for credit cards to watch out for.

Here’s how to download your history and what to notice.

Sign In to Your PC Financial Accounts

  1. Go to http://www.pcfinancial.ca/
  2. Make sure Online Banking is selected from the drop down list in the top right corner of the screen, then
    Click the Go button.
  3. In the Card Number field, type the number on your ABM card.
  4. In the Password field, type the password you set up for online banking.
  5. Click on the Sign In button.

Downloading your PC Financial Account History

  1. From the link list on the left side of the screen, click on: account activities From the sub-list, click on:
    download transactions
  2. If you are going to use Sage 50 Money or Quicken for the first time, it’s worth reading the PC Financial Tips at https://www.txn.banking.pcfinancial.ca/a/banking/accounts/downloadTransactionsTips.page
  3. From the drop down list, select the account for which you want to download the history.
  4. Choose which transactions you want by selecting either
    • All since last download; or
    • All available
    • All within date range
      If you choose this one, you need to select the month, day and year for the start and end dates.
    • PC Financial recommends you choose “Since last download” the first time you download your data.
    • If you want to see the data before you download it, select the Yes radio button.
      Otherwise, select the No button.
  5. UPDATE: March 3 2016: If you want to download the numbers to use in a specific listed program, click the radio button beside
    • Intuit Quicken
    • Sage 50  Money (Updated March 3 2016) ; or
    • Spreadsheet (CSV) which means Comma Separated Values, which you use for MS Excel and similar programs.
  6. Click on the button called: Download Transactions
  7. If you selected Preview, you will see a list of the date, description and amount that moved in or out of your account.
    If the Preview looks ok, click on the button: download transactions.
  8. When the Opening PCF.csv dialog box opens, you can either select the radio button to
    • Open the file with Microsoft Office Excel (or select another program from the drop down list); or
    • Save File

    Then click on the OK button.

  9. If you clicked Save File, you will either get prompted to ask where to save the file, or your file will be automatically saved to your Downloads folder.

If you open the file using a program like Microsoft Excel, you will probably find it’s full of fields with ##### in them. That just means the column is too narrow to display the info.  Hover the cursor over the little line between the Column Name Letters (like A | B) at the top of the screen, then click and hold the mouse button down while you drag the line sideways to make the column wider.

What’s In the CSV “Other” File Format?

The file will contain a line for each transaction. The line will list

  • the date
  • a description of the item, for example Cheque #3 in the Transaction details column
  • if the funds moved out of the account, the amount in dollars and cents with no symbols in the Funds Out column
  • if the funds moved in to the account, the amount in dollars and cents with no symbols in the Funds In column

A Useful Tip from the PC Financial Tips Window

“Please note: Transaction data is accurate as of 11:00 p.m. local time on the previous business day. However, your account balance [as you can see when looking at your account online] is accurate up to and including your latest transaction, which could be the current day. As a result, the opening balance which your PFM calculates may not be accurate. See adjusting the opening account balance below.”

For more details open the Tips window from the link on the Download Transactions screen.

One Notable Error in my PC Financial Transaction History

Strangely enough in my CSV file there is one type of recurring format error. This error shows up when I open the downloaded Transaction History in Excel.

If I paid an AMEX bill, in the Funds Out column it lists to which bank the payment was made.

For example if I paid my BMO AMEX, it will say BMO in the Funds Out column.

The actual payment paid ends up listed in the Funds In column!

It would be great if AMEX was sending me money, but it isn’t true.

Strangely enough, this error does not show up in the Preview report.

This happens whether I download the Other format directly to Excel or to a Saved file which I then open in Excel.

When I open the CSV file in Word I can see the error. Instead of a line being
06/29/2013,INTERNET BILL PAYMENT AMEX BMO   ,109.77

it is listed as:
06/29/2013,INTERNET BILL PAYMENT AMEX, BMO   ,109.77

That extra comma before the BMO is causing the error in Excel.

If I have time, I will try to report this error to PC Financial.

Is There a Security Risk in Downloading the PCF CSV File?

The data in the PCF comma separated file (the one you get by downloading Other) does not include any detailed information about your bank account numbers, billing account numbers, or passwords.

For example, my report says I paid Cogeco bill but it doesn’t give my Cogeco account number.

Even more importantly, when I pay my AMEX bill it does not list my credit card number.

This should reduce, somewhat, the security risk of having this data on your computer if your computer is hacked or stolen.

For increased security, print out the data and delete it from your drive, or save it to a disk or USB stick and don’t leave the disk/stick where it can easily be found and stolen.

If you are finished banking

  1. At the top right of the screen, click on the Sign Out button.
  2. Click on the OK button.
  3. Clear your cache and close your browser to increase the security of your banking information.

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Do you download your transactions into a financial program or a spreadsheet? Have you found any other quirks you’d like to warn us about? Please share your experiences with a comment.

What Do You Have to Do When Your Credit Card is Used Fraudulently? (Credit Card Misery: Part Two)

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For some reason, I had thought that our credit card worries were over once we signed a letter disputing the fraudulent charges to our account and replaced the card with a new one. So it was with shock I opened two large envelopes from our bank to discover still more paperwork. Were we going to be on the hook for thousands of dollars we didn’t spend?

Reviewing the Vendor Authorizations and Bills for the Fraudulent Purchases

What was in each bulky envelope was individual packets for each transaction made illegally against our card. Apparently when we refused to pay,  the credit card company asked each company involved to provide proof that we had made a purchase.

Not Every Disputed Charge Turns Out to Be Fraud

I realized as I looked through the billing reports that this is actually a necessary step. It reminded me of a billing mystery we’d faced a few months before. On that bill, there was a charge for about $1.57 payable to an online book seller. It seemed a very unlikely amount. We almost always order enough for “free shipping” so the bill should have been over $25. The listing on our monthly statement just listed the name of the vendor and a toll free number. It didn’t state what item or items had been purchased.

Luckily, saving probable embarrassment, before I took it any further the light bulb went off in my head. We had placed an order for one of our children. Most of the order had been paid for with a gift card they received from a birthday. The balance, $1.57, had to be paid for directly by credit card.

That’s an example of why the credit card company wants us to review the transaction details. What if we denied a charge by accident due to faulty memories or some mix-up about the name of a company? By reading the detailed transaction history we would have known what books were ordered for “$1.57.” Similarly, we might look through these bills and realize the name a company bills under differs from the name of the company’s website.

Causes Minor Panic

The forms requested us to review the transaction details and if we still denied making the purchases we needed to sign them and send them back. If we didn’t return the signed forms by a deadline, we were deemed to have accepted the charges as valid and they would appear on our next bill.

The panic came from the deadline. The forms were printed by the bank on June 19 but we didn’t receive them until Thursday June 27. And we had to return them by July 3. Yes, that’s right, Canada Day weekend stood between the day we got them and when they had to be back.

A phone call to the bank was somewhat calming. They said they could be faxed back from any bank branch. They also said that they usually give a bit of grace period despite what the letter said. In fact, judging by the tone of the person I spoke with, I think these types of disputes must be very common and these types of mail delays must not be unusual.

Faxed Back and Now We Wait Again

So we have faxed back our forms. Now we wait again. We’re waiting for the vendor forms for the other 1/3 of our disputed charges. They are likely still in the mail.

Will it all end well? I certainly hope so. It’s almost enough to make me stop using a credit card entirely.

Who Really Pays for Credit Card Fraud

I felt rather sick realizing how many small businesses were going to lose because of this fraud. They mailed their merchandise off to the customer in good faith. Now they have no way to get back those Apple TVs and iPod kits. Yet they have no way to get paid for them either. That’s got to hurt.

And, of course, eventually it is all of us who will be paying for this fraud. Those businesses will have to raise their prices to real customers to cover their losses. Or they will go bankrupt which will reduce price competition and again lead to higher prices.

I hope they catch the perpetrators of this crime and jail them. They have robbed from all of us and they should be the ones who have to pay for it.

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Has your card ever been scammed? Did it work out ok? Please share your experiences with a comment.