Using Pennyweight in Canada

Pennyweight links banks in the US only, so Canadian accounts use statement import. You add each account by hand in Canadian dollars, and your AI reads your bank's statements or download files into it. New to this? Start with use Pennyweight without a bank link.

What Canadian banks give you

There are two kinds of file to work from: a PDF statement and a transaction download. What's on offer depends on your bank. Some examples from the banks' own help pages:

• TD. EasyWeb's Download Transactions screen exports for Intuit Quicken, Intuit QuickBooks, a CSV spreadsheet or Simply Accounting. It covers activity since your last download, up to the last 45 days. You can also download one account's activity as a CSV file from its Account Activity page. TD's help for saving online statements points you to a PDF viewer.
• Tangerine. Downloads come as QFX, for Quicken and Microsoft Money, or as an Excel CSV. You download them on tangerine.ca, not in the mobile app. Statements are under the Statements button.
• Scotiabank. Online banking has a Download as QuickBooks option for a statement period you pick.

If a download doesn't reach back far enough, ask your AI to read your statements for the older months.

Pennyweight has no reader for PDFs, QFX or QuickBooks files. Your AI opens the file in your chat and sends the transactions to Pennyweight as rows. For download files, see OFX, QFX and QBO files. For PDFs, see import a PDF or screenshot statement.

How to do it

1. Ask your AI to add a manual account with CAD as its currency. Give the balance at the start of your first statement as its opening balance. A new manual account needs one before its first import saves.
2. Share the statement or download file with your AI and name the account.
3. Check the preview: the number of rows, and the account's balance after the import. That balance should equal the statement's closing balance. See balance looks wrong after an import.
4. Say yes. Your AI saves the rows and reports how many went in.

What you'll see

For the first prompt, your AI adds Canadian Chequing in CAD, reads the statement and shows a preview: how many rows are new and the account's balance after the import. For this statement, that balance equals the closing balance printed on it. After you confirm, your AI reports how many rows were saved to Canadian Chequing.

For the second, your AI adds a separate US dollar account and previews the file's rows into it, then saves them after you confirm.

Good to know

• CAD stays CAD. Rows without their own currency take the account's currency. Each amount is stored in its own currency and is never converted, so a CAD account and a USD account each keep their own balance. Totals that combine your ledgers, such as your net worth, keep the figures per currency and add one figure in your display currency. See choose the currency for totals across ledgers and accounts and totals in more than one currency.
• US dollar accounts. TD, for one, offers US dollar accounts to Canadians. Add each one as its own USD account. If you import USD rows into a CAD account, the preview flags them.
• CSV downloads. Pennyweight can also read a CSV file directly. It converts dates written YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, DD.MM.YYYY or YYYYMMDD once your AI names which order the file uses. It never guesses the order, and a date in any other form blocks the whole file. For those, let your AI read the file. See import a CSV export.
• Accounts added in Settings. An account you add under Settings, Accounts still needs an opening balance before its first import. See set or correct an opening balance.
• Checking each month. To compare an account with a statement's closing balance, see reconcile against a statement.