How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Questions on how we spend our money and our time - consumer goods and services, home and vehicle, leisure and recreational activities
Post Reply
Topic Author
Dave-H
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:30 pm

How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Dave-H »

Hi all-

I do a lot of shopping on Amazon.com, and I'm starting to use mint.com again to track spending. Unfortunately, each shipment from Amazom comes through as a single transaction on my credit card and is usually auto-categorized regardless of what's inside. Sometimes there are multiple items from different categories so this really gets tough.

I wouldn't mind having to split the transactions manually if it was easy, but looking up each transaction on amazon.com to find out what is inside is just too cumbersome. Does anyone know of any workarounds for this?

I have heard that the amazon store credit card integrates with mint, ,so if there was detail about what was in each order that could do the trick. Anyone have any success with this?

thanks!
furwut
Posts: 2123
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 8:54 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by furwut »

I manually split mine but I don’t order much. First I’ve heard of Amazon integration!

If that doesn’t work for you checkout One Receipt. It looks like it makes splitting a tad easier.
http://twocents.lifehacker.com/an-inter ... 1696389687
Topic Author
Dave-H
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:30 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Dave-H »

Looks like a perfect solution but they shut down a while back!
vveat
Posts: 397
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:24 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by vveat »

I shop a lot on Amazon - usually have 15-25 Amazon transactions a month in Mint

I split them manually, but I do it once a month (since I do a budget categories review in the beginning of the month). Just filter for Amazon transactions, compare the list against the Amazon Orders list and it's a 5-10 min exercise at most.

And when ordering you could also separate your order by type of expense - and do a separate order for each type (using the "save for later" - instead of buying A, B and C together, save B and C for later, buy A, then B then C - that way you don't need to split transactions within Mint. This assumes you have Prime and don't care about shipping charges, but you did say you shop there a lot.
User avatar
siamond
Posts: 6008
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:50 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by siamond »

I ended up making my life simple and defining one budget category as "Amazon Shopping"... I only manually reclassify a few transactions (e.g. occasional large expense for home improvement, or Airbnb gift cards). I don't know of a better solution. I have the same problem with Paypal and eBay, although I use those much less, so this isn't much of an issue to manually reclassify in this case.

PS. question for Personal Capital users: is it any better for you?
HornedToad
Posts: 1130
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 12:36 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by HornedToad »

siamond wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:09 am I ended up making my life simple and defining one budget category as "Amazon Shopping"... I only manually reclassify a few transactions (e.g. occasional large expense for home improvement, or Airbnb gift cards). I don't know of a better solution. I have the same problem with Paypal and eBay, although I use those much less, so this isn't much of an issue to manually reclassify in this case.

PS. question for Personal Capital users: is it any better for you?
This. I just have a category for Amazon. I'm more concerned with tracking spending overall than the exact categories and it's too much hassle to split everything; especially when alot of the shopping is from my wife.
Topic Author
Dave-H
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:30 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Dave-H »

I'm trying to do that, but an amazing amount of our spending goes through amazon now. I'm not sure how I feel about that, really. But, it's mixed up with groceries, electronics, books, household, office supplies, pet supplies , etc. For example, this month they auto-categorized to 'groceries' and we now have $4100 of groceries for the month according to mint!
froman118
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:04 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by froman118 »

I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Topic Author
Dave-H
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:30 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Dave-H »

froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Are you saying that you have seen the store card working with mint.com, and that the individual items in the order are listed in the description field on the mint.com register? That would be a fairly convenient solution as I could split out the transactions without having to use multiple tools! Much better than what I have now.

Does it work well??
Chuck
Posts: 2505
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 12:19 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Chuck »

+1 I'm lazy and I classify it as "Shopping." If it goes too high, I say "We need to do less shopping."
rkhusky
Posts: 17764
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:09 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by rkhusky »

I used to have trouble with this because we shop at a store like Walmart, where you can get food, clothes, toys, hardware, gas, etc. After 10 years of that, I figured I had enough data, plus my wife didn't like me pointing out that eating out cost 7x per meal what eating at home cost. So now I just break purchases up into short term (consumed within a year), mid term (average life of 5 years) and long term (average life greater than 10 years). Makes things so much easier.
deikel
Posts: 1616
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:13 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by deikel »

I would argue that's a nice feature (that they split the order in products and charge separately) - that way you can attach the correct category to each purchase (books, household, garden ect)

Mint is fairly dumb and could not possibly assign the right category based on what you buy, it remembers the category you gave the merchant once and repeats that or assigns a merchant a new category based on 'best guess', usually based on the name which sometimes has funny results
Everything you read in this post is my personal opinion. If you disagree with this disclaimer, please un-read the text immediately and destroy any copy or remembrance of it.
JBTX
Posts: 11227
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:46 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by JBTX »

froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Amazon card does not do this with Quicken. I'm surprised it does it with Mint.
3dream3
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 2:53 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by 3dream3 »

Chuck wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 12:07 pm +1 I'm lazy and I classify it as "Shopping." If it goes too high, I say "We need to do less shopping."
This! I do the same exact thing... I try to keep it simple and classify it as 'Shopping'. Much easier that way.
BanditKing
Posts: 631
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 11:11 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BanditKing »

For a long time at Personal Capital, the Amazon Store Card (Synchrony Bank) was not linkable.

Seeing this thread I checked again, it now DOES now appear on the list of banks that PC can talk to. I need to go dig my card out and set up my card login to test it, but at least it appears to be there now.
Last edited by BanditKing on Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
BanditKing
Posts: 631
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 11:11 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BanditKing »

Following up to my own post. Personal Capital WILL connect with the Amazon Store Card now. You'll have to set up your account at www.syncbank.com/amazon.

However, all purchases seem to be imported as "General Merchandise". The 5% Statement Credits are notated as "Other Income".
furwut
Posts: 2123
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 8:54 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by furwut »

JBTX wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:03 pm
froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Amazon card does not do this with Quicken. I'm surprised it does it with Mint.
When Intuit acquired Mint I feared they would fold the online service into Quicken. But Intuit sold off Quicken Personal Finance in 2016 and, since then, has been slowly enhancing Mint.
furwut
Posts: 2123
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 8:54 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by furwut »

I have heard that the amazon store credit card integrates with mint, ,so if there was detail about what was in each order that could do the trick. Anyone have any success with this?
OP,
JBTX’s post got me curious but I haven’t been able to find any reference that says Amazon transactions could be automatically split in Mint. Could you be over interpreting Amazon’s instructions linking their card?

These instructions are the basically what one has to do to link any credit card which gets you just the transaction total in Mint.
JBTX
Posts: 11227
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:46 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by JBTX »

furwut wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:40 am
JBTX wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:03 pm
froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Amazon card does not do this with Quicken. I'm surprised it does it with Mint.
When Intuit acquired Mint I feared they would fold the online service into Quicken. But Intuit sold off Quicken Personal Finance in 2016 and, since then, has been slowly enhancing Mint.
Agree on Quicken. While it is clunky and not the most efficient software in the world, it does most of what I need in terms of expense tracking and investing. Now that it has been divested my fear is that its days are numbered. Eventually I'll look into mint but the feedback I've heard is that it is good for expense tracking but isn't as strong on the investing side.
User avatar
Flobes
Posts: 1771
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:40 pm
Location: Home

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Flobes »

I too am both a Mint user and an Amazon frequent flyer with thousands of orders.

Here's my strategy; it's actually much simpler to execute than it reads:

ONE TIME SETUP:
1) Create new expense account. Choose a name that has zero to do with your expenses, that you won't use for any other purpose. Example: applesauce.
2) Next time you have an Amazon.com expense, go into that expense. Name it Amazon. Categorize it as applesauce. Hit box to confirm your rule: always rename Amazon.com as Amazon and categorize as applesauce.
3) Next time you have an Amazon Mktplace Pmts expense, go into that expense. Name it Amazon. Categorize it as applesauce. Hit box to confirm your rule: always rename Amazon Mktplace Pmts as Amazon and categorize as applesauce.
4) Next time you have an Amazon Mktplace expense, go into that expense. Name it Amazon. Categorize it as applesauce. Hit box to confirm your rule: always rename Amazon Mktplace as Amazon and categorize as applesauce.
5) Ditto process for Amazon Retail, etc.

Now, automatically, all various new Amazon events are called Amazon, and they're all categorized as applesauce.

ONGOING (whenever the mood strikes):
1) From Mint Transactions, highlight any applesauce listing. Then select the "Show all applesauce" link. Voila: all your Amazon purchases awaiting your attention are listed.
2) From Amazon, open Orders.
3) Start from the top, and match Amazon orders to Mint transactions. Where the dollars amounts don't match, view "Invoice" to see where Amazon grouped items, then you can Mint categorize and/or split them.
4) Sometimes I'll work Mint on my laptop and Amazon Orders on my IPad; for some reason I find it simpler.
User avatar
siamond
Posts: 6008
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:50 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by siamond »

Flobes wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:26 amHere's my strategy; it's actually much simpler to execute than it reads: [...]
If I understand well, the essence of your process is that you set things up to have two easily comparable lists (Mint transactions and Amazon orders) and then you manually categorize, right? You didn't find any way to add more automation to the categorization, correct?

Well, you could (and should) pay all Amazon expenses with the Amazon Store credit Card (and benefit from the 5% discount). Then there is no need for the one-time set-up, just select the account associated with said credit card with Mint, and you'll have all your Amazon transactions displayed and isolated.
User avatar
Flobes
Posts: 1771
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:40 pm
Location: Home

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by Flobes »

siamond wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:38 pmIf I understand well, the essence of your process is that you set things up to have two easily comparable lists (Mint transactions and Amazon orders) and then you manually categorize, right? You didn't find any way to add more automation to the categorization, correct?
Correct. I order diverse categories of stuff from Amazon. As a rural denizen, it's been life-changing. I can't imagine an automated algorithm that'd correctly guess what's what. As it is, except for most nationally-branded gas stations, Mint's category guesses are rarely correct, sometimes hilariously wrong.
siamond wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:38 pmWell, you could (and should) pay all Amazon expenses with the Amazon Store credit Card (and benefit from the 5% discount). Then there is no need for the one-time set-up, just select the account associated with said credit card with Mint, and you'll have all your Amazon transactions displayed and isolated.
Amazon Prime card from Chase is now also 5% for Amazon purchases (with 2% for restaurants and gas). I prefer using it as it's more flexible and I have two other Chase rewards cards so I'm in the Chase ecosystem. I have an Amazon store card too, but I may cancel it bcz I don't need or like Synchrony. I am wondering if either or neither or both will offer 5% at Whole Foods. I've had my "applesauce" system for years, as I've migrated charging from card to card to card.
froman118
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:04 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by froman118 »

JBTX wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:03 pm
froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Amazon card does not do this with Quicken. I'm surprised it does it with Mint.
What I see in Mint:

http://i.imgur.com/BpCwVGq.png
mrc
Posts: 1908
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2016 5:39 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by mrc »

I order a lot from Amazon. In the budget "Amazon" isn't a useful item, because one can purchase so many things there. So every now and then I download several months of order history:

Your Account > Your Orders > Order History Reports

These go into the credit card purchase detail, and I can tag them by bucket.
By the time you know enough to choose a good financial adviser, you don't need one. | bogleheads.org is my advisor: The ER is 0.0% and the advice always solid.
User avatar
siamond
Posts: 6008
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:50 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by siamond »

froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 amI manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
I never paid attention, but you're absolutely right. That's neat! Thank you.
JBTX
Posts: 11227
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:46 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by JBTX »

froman118 wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:32 pm
JBTX wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:03 pm
froman118 wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 11:26 am I manually split up Amazon, Target and Costco transactions. Amazon is actually the easiest with the store card because the description that comes across to Mint has the name of the items in the order so sometimes I don't have to pull up the details.
Amazon card does not do this with Quicken. I'm surprised it does it with Mint.
What I see in Mint:

http://i.imgur.com/BpCwVGq.png
Interesting. There isn't that much room in comment/notes field in quicken register for that much text.
User avatar
gasdoc
Posts: 2042
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:26 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by gasdoc »

All of my Amazon purchases go under the category, "household." Yes, it is arbitrary, a catch-all. I occasionally will get more detailed on a very large purchase that is for something other than "household."

gasdoc
BogleMelon
Posts: 3181
Joined: Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:49 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BogleMelon »

That was one of too many reasons that made me switch years ago to YNAB!
"One of the funny things about stock market, every time one is buying another is selling, and both think they are astute" - William Feather
BanditKing
Posts: 631
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 11:11 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BanditKing »

Flobes wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:18 pm Amazon Prime card from Chase is now also 5% for Amazon purchases (with 2% for restaurants and gas). I prefer using it as it's more flexible and I have two other Chase rewards cards so I'm in the Chase ecosystem. I have an Amazon store card too, but I may cancel it bcz I don't need or like Synchrony. I am wondering if either or neither or both will offer 5% at Whole Foods. I've had my "applesauce" system for years, as I've migrated charging from card to card to card.
I believe that the 5% for Amazon purchases only applies to Amazon Products and Fullfilled By Amazon product, but does not for Marketplace (Fullfilled by Merchant) items. The Store card covers all three types.
avalpert
Posts: 6313
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:58 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by avalpert »

BanditKing wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:54 pm
Flobes wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:18 pm Amazon Prime card from Chase is now also 5% for Amazon purchases (with 2% for restaurants and gas). I prefer using it as it's more flexible and I have two other Chase rewards cards so I'm in the Chase ecosystem. I have an Amazon store card too, but I may cancel it bcz I don't need or like Synchrony. I am wondering if either or neither or both will offer 5% at Whole Foods. I've had my "applesauce" system for years, as I've migrated charging from card to card to card.
I believe that the 5% for Amazon purchases only applies to Amazon Products and Fullfilled By Amazon product, but does not for Marketplace (Fullfilled by Merchant) items. The Store card covers all three types.
Nope, the Chase card covers any purchase made at Amazon.com:
5% Back for each $1 of eligible purchases made using your
card account at Amazon.com. 5% Back is earned only on
purchases made at Amazon.com (including digital downloads,
Amazon.com Gift Cards, Amazon Fresh orders, Amazon
Prime subscriptions, and items sold by third-party merchants
through Amazon.com’s marketplace).
BanditKing
Posts: 631
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 11:11 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BanditKing »

Good to know. Thanks for checking into it. :)
jeffprouty
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:20 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by jeffprouty »

Hi All!

For those looking to spiffy up their Amazon purchases inside of Mint, I just finished up a script to do just that. Take a look:
https://github.com/jprouty/mint-amazon-tagger

Any feedback is welcome!
whanaumark
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2017 1:15 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by whanaumark »

One website to checkout for Amazon is Trim

If you link your Amazon account to them and a credit card with price protection they will automatically look for price reductions and get you the refund (they take a cut). Pretty cool IMO
User avatar
SmileyFace
Posts: 9184
Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:11 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by SmileyFace »

BogleMelon wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:09 pm That was one of too many reasons that made me switch years ago to YNAB!
Does YNAB auto-split Amazon into appropriate categories? If not - can you let us know what you mean by this?
Years ago (just a few years ago) YNAB didn't even auto-pull - every thing was manual.
clutchied
Posts: 862
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:11 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by clutchied »

Dave-H wrote: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:34 pm Hi all-

I do a lot of shopping on Amazon.com, and I'm starting to use mint.com again to track spending. Unfortunately, each shipment from Amazom comes through as a single transaction on my credit card and is usually auto-categorized regardless of what's inside. Sometimes there are multiple items from different categories so this really gets tough.

I wouldn't mind having to split the transactions manually if it was easy, but looking up each transaction on amazon.com to find out what is inside is just too cumbersome. Does anyone know of any workarounds for this?

I have heard that the amazon store credit card integrates with mint, ,so if there was detail about what was in each order that could do the trick. Anyone have any success with this?

thanks!
I don't bother. I just dump it into shopping. Same thing with Costco.


It has de minimis value for me to try and categorize all that stuff... bad time value.


As others have mentioned you can maually split a transaction... but wouldn't you rather be outside walking or doing something you like?
taguscove
Posts: 135
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2016 5:49 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by taguscove »

If you have prime, just buy each purchase individually and have it shipped separately. Nothing quite like a $1.50 item with an $8 shipping cost.
BogleMelon
Posts: 3181
Joined: Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:49 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by BogleMelon »

DaftInvestor wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2017 6:41 am
BogleMelon wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:09 pm That was one of too many reasons that made me switch years ago to YNAB!
Does YNAB auto-split Amazon into appropriate categories? If not - can you let us know what you mean by this?
Years ago (just a few years ago) YNAB didn't even auto-pull - every thing was manual.
I still use YNAB 4 which is manual. To enter a transaction manually it takes me around 1-5 seconds literally. I find it is way better than the new YNAB that is auto pull. neither of them auto categorize Amazon purchases of course, but you can still fully control how to split it manually.
It is not just this reason that made me switch, rather the whole concept.. Zerp-based budgeting "virtual envelope" works like a charm..and makes much sense.
"One of the funny things about stock market, every time one is buying another is selling, and both think they are astute" - William Feather
User avatar
SmileyFace
Posts: 9184
Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:11 am

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by SmileyFace »

BogleMelon wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2017 9:52 am
DaftInvestor wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2017 6:41 am
BogleMelon wrote: Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:09 pm That was one of too many reasons that made me switch years ago to YNAB!
Does YNAB auto-split Amazon into appropriate categories? If not - can you let us know what you mean by this?
Years ago (just a few years ago) YNAB didn't even auto-pull - every thing was manual.
I still use YNAB 4 which is manual. To enter a transaction manually it takes me around 1-5 seconds literally. I find it is way better than the new YNAB that is auto pull. neither of them auto categorize Amazon purchases of course, but you can still fully control how to split it manually.
It is not just this reason that made me switch, rather the whole concept.. Zerp-based budgeting "virtual envelope" works like a charm..and makes much sense.
Thanks for the reply - I'm still missing what you meant though in this being one of the reasons you switched to YNAB - how is the manual split in YNAB easier, faster, or better than it is in Quicken or Mint?
(I only ask because I used Quicken in the past, Mint recently, and have thought about giving YNAB another try if I want to get back into detailed cash-flow tracking).
jdjintx
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by jdjintx »

jeffprouty wrote: Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:21 pm Hi All!

For those looking to spiffy up their Amazon purchases inside of Mint, I just finished up a script to do just that. Take a look:
https://github.com/jprouty/mint-amazon-tagger

Any feedback is welcome!
I checked this out and it looks like a great solution when it finds exact matches for transaction values in Mint & Amazon order reports. Can you describe how it handles transactions that are not exact matches?

Thanks!

jd
masrapido
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 2:23 pm
Location: Portland, OR

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by masrapido »

I suspect the best way to get answers about mint-amazon-tagger is to post here: https://github.com/jprouty/mint-amazon-tagger/issues. Having spent many hours splitting and characterizing amazon transactions manually, I'm intrigued and planning to give it a go. My biggest question is how it handles authentication to both amazon and mint. The command line accepts your email addrs for each, and no password, and I'm assuming the tools asks you to enter is, but I'd want to make sure that it was using sufficient encryption in the connection..
michaeljc70
Posts: 10843
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:53 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by michaeljc70 »

I use Quicken not Mint, but I don't see how it would be possible to correctly categorize things automatically. Everyone can setup their own categories and sometimes when I manually assign categories I have to make a decision because it could go in 1 of 2 or 3 categories. If I buy a gift I categorize it as a gift regardless of what I bought. Anything automatic seems like it would be a guess at best.

When manually categorizing transactions like Amazon or Paypal I enter the amount in my gmail search bar and that usually gives me a hit to the order right away.
jeffprouty
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:20 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by jeffprouty »

Hi all, thanks for interest in the tool! I've subscribed to this thread for real this time, so I should be more responsive than 2+ years :-P

Re: Exact matching
I use the dollar amounts of your orders (which Amazon uses nominally to represent as credit card "charges") + a ~3 day window between when your payment posted (as reported by Mint) and when Amazon processed the payment. The tool allows you to adjust this upwards, in case you have lackluster matching due to some banks/debit cards being slow.

For Amazon orders that don't match any mint transactions, these are displayed to the user so you know that you need to go manually find them or handle them yourself. If everything is working, this should be 1-5% of your Amazon orders.

Re: Auth
I just recently updated the main README to explain a bit more how the tool works. Every time it runs, it fetches the latest Chromium browser version (to stay secure/up to date), and uses selenium, a SW testing framework, that allows the tool to drive the browser. All of your auth details entered into the tagger tool are only kept in RAM while the program is running, and are passed through Selenium to the Chromium browser, to log into either Amazon or Mint. All of the communication the browser does is via standard SSL, just as if you're doing it via your normal browser. Please let me know if you want any additional level of detail. The other pro here, is that the tool is completely open source, which means you (or your coder buddy) can audit what's said here to put yourself at ease.

Re: Categorizing
Amazon and Mint both have their own built in category taxonomy. I've created a mapping of these categories, and use them to translate what category an item from an amazon order is related to Mint's built-in categories. See the mapping here: https://github.com/jprouty/mint-amazon- ... ory.py#L10

In addition to this Amazon -> Mint translation, the tool also fetches some additional mint transactions back in time (if you are trying to tag 3 months, it will grab 6 months) and creates a custom, per-user category mapping of item description -> user set category (again, not stored anywhere, recreated on each run). Example: That way, when the tool runs into those napkins again, it will categorize it to your custom "Kitchen" category, since you did that every time before for that same item.

Hope that helps answer some questions :) Thanks for trying or thinking about trying the tool! There's new installer versions that make it super easy to use (no more installing python and all that jazz)
m1m1k
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2023 4:12 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by m1m1k »

This is absolutely brilliant.
https://github.com/jprouty/mint-amazon-tagger/

Totally works on Win10 (after updating my chrome to the latest)
Thank you @JeffProuty !!! This is phenomenal.
jeffprouty
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:20 pm

Re: How to deal with Amazon purchases with Mint.com??

Post by jeffprouty »

Thank you @m1m1k!
Post Reply