How to handle duplicate transactions

I have had this question asks now a few times so I guess it is a more common problem then I thought.

There are a number of scenarios why you would have duplicate transactions. Mint knows this and thus they created a way to mark duplicate transactions so they don’t show up on their site. But unfortunately, duplicate transactions still get exported to CSV. And when they are exported to CSV, Mint does not mark them as duplicates. Because of this, there is no way for MintToReport to distinguish them as duplicates. Follow these steps to hide duplicate transactions from MintToReport.

1. Create a new Category on Mint’s site called ‘Duplicate’.
2. Change the Category on all of your duplicate transactions to the new ‘Duplicate’ category.
3. Export as usual.
4. When importing into MintToReport, MintToReport will ask you what Parent Category you would like the ‘Duplicate’ category to be placed. When asked, choose ‘Other Categories’.

Normally, when running reports in MintToReport, you only choose Income and Expense categories, all the transactions in your new Duplicate Category will not be displayed. This will keep them hidden and keep your reports accurate.

The other option is to use TAGS. But this could cause problems remembering to always exclude the special tag. Thus, my suggestion for using a ‘Duplicate’ category makes sense. If you know of another way, please leave a comment below.