American Express Connection

grant_at_ccag · April 24

Hello: We have a corporate AMEX Open Small Business account program that I'm trying to link to Expensify, but haven't seen success in making this work for us. Any thoughts out there? We have both Gold and Plum cards but want to link the Gold cards only.

SPW1234 · May 28

I am having the same issue.

Matt Cole · May 28

Our engineering team is looking into this as a known issue with American Express. With that said, if your company is eligible, a Commercial Feed could be a reliable workaround.

If you have a corporate or commercial card account, or are eligible for an Amex @ Work card program, then you may be able to access a daily transaction feed where expenses are sent to Expensify by your bank or American Express, which is a connection that is less prone to these types of connectivity issues. Contact your relationship manager at the bank to see if this is something you'd qualify for.

If not, you're not out of luck. You can still import your card transactions via CSV spreadsheet import. Please find complete instructions here.

We'll also be in touch once we updated the Amex connection, which is coming very soon!

corywbrown · June 1

Can you please provide an update to the status of the resolution? This is a significant impairment on our use of Expensify as we only use this for documenting and recording company credit card transactions.

Stevie LaFortune · June 1

@corywbrown I don't have an ETA on a fix for the American Express US Business connection. I would suggest importing those transactions with our CSV import in the meantime.

Please find complete instructions here.

corywbrown · June 1

The challenge is knowing start dates to use for the csv transations without going through each transaction individually. Based on the last date the accounts synced before the connection issue, there could have pending transactions which did not import, yet when posted they still have always imported with the original transaction date. Additionally when the connection is restored, will this not then duplicate the transactions?

Jeff_T · June 1

Had this same problem a few months back and uploaded the outstanding items thru the CSV import, but when the Card Connection was restored, there were tons of duplicate entries. Can you let us know exactly when this issue will be fixed? This is a known problem and repeating issue that we have encounter almost every month.

Nicole Trepanier · June 1

@Jeff_T Unfortunately, we aren't able to tell you exactly when this connection will be fixed. While we are working on building a brand new connection because of these issues, there are a lot of moving parts so we don't even have an estimate yet. This is a major bank and we are working to get this connection up and running as soon as possible.

Mikail_Expensify · June 2

It looks like this is still an unresolved incident today... Is there an update you can provide? I have clients that are worried they won't be able to reconcile in their accounting software because of missing transactions - they at least want an update or to know that someone is actually working on it.

Katie Oswalt · June 2

Hi @Mikail_Expensify! I'm still unable to provide an ETA on this and it can often take quite some time to make these changes, so it very likely won't be in the next few days. I would highly recommend taking one of the alternate routes mentioned to make sure that your clients' transactions are all accounted for.

Jessicamarquis_1608 · June 3

Was wondering if we have any update as to when this will be resolved. My billing cycle has ended for my 200 employee cards and they are showing zero expenses from 4/28-5/29.

Zany Renney · June 3

Hey @Jessicamarquis_1608

Apologies for the delay here but I don't have an exact ETA on when this will be resolved. We are actively working on this though, and hope to get it sorted soon.

In the meantime, I would recommend either contacting your Banking Relationship manager to see if you qualify for a Commercial Card feed or uploading transactions via CSV import.

Please find complete instructions for how to do this here.

Jessicamarquis_1608 · June 3

Will you post on this thread - when it is back up and working

@Zany Renney

Amanda DeWitt · June 3

Hey @Jessicamarquis_1608 !

Yes, we will do our best to update any Community posts as well as send out messaging to previous Amex Business users to inform them of the new connection when it is live.

Rollin · June 4

Will you be providing credits to the users with AMEX small business? this is creating a lot of manual adjustments costing time for each of our employees. Also, the CSV date format requirement is challenging.

Maddy Lewis · June 4

Hi @Rollin - We're hoping to have this Amex issue resolved soon. Additionally, if you're having trouble uploading a CSV at the domain-level, please reach out to us at [email protected] and we can assist with this!

That said, we likely will not be issuing credits at this time. I appreciate you checking in about that.

kdavis · June 4

I reached out to concierge about the csv upload and went back and forth for HOURS sharing my mapping and spreadsheet and they couldn't help. No clue what they were doing. I even used their template and it didn't work because i don't think they have any idea what goes in the "Card Number" field to map to the user account.

Cortney Ofstad · June 4

Hi @kdavis — sorry for the continued hassle here! If you're attempting to import a spreadsheet of Amex expenses, Amex usually only lists 15 characters for the card number. However, in order to upload it in Expensify it has to have 16 characters. I recommend adding an X to the middle of the card numbers to help upload those successfully.

If you have any other questions or need anything else, please let me know!

kdavis · June 4

we tried that....I was told to use an X to fill in all the numbers except the final 5 identifying numbers to make a total of 16 characters. Didn't work.

Nicole Trepanier · June 4

@kdavis We were able to discover a strange workaround that fixes the issue of being unable to assign cards. I went ahead and did it on your account and you should now be able to assign your cards. I can now see them in the dropdown. Let me know if you have any questions!

JMH · June 5

I need to assign a card to a new user and unable to connect in the domain. Will an import help with that? Also, how will can mitigate duplicate transactions when the feed is restored?

John Schuster · June 5

@JMH Solid question! So, the CSV import is viewed as an entirely different card set than your currently assigned cards. That said, there isn't a way to have the CSV import feed data into your assigned cards, rather, you would need to upload the CSV, and then assign cards from the CSV to your cardholders. We recognize that might be a bit cumbersome, but it's the best solution we have while we work toward an improved connection with American Express.

Elise_Byron · June 5

@John Schuster Following up with JMH's question: How will duplication be mitigated? When the new API is functional, will it start pulling transactions as of the day it is created or will it post retrospectively to May 23rd? Just wondering if I should wait it out or if it is going to be necessary to use the csv import.

Additionally, what is the expected date of completion for the API? Many of us have a month end close schedule that must be adhered to. It would be great to be able to know if it can be met, instead of being kept in the dark.

Thank you.

Jessicamarquis_1608 · June 5

This has been going on for over a month - Hearing that you are working on it as a response over and over again is not actually helping. What seems to be causing the issue, why is Expesnify not receiving the American Express charges anymore ?

We need a ETA - the entire reason I pay for this services is for American Express. @Jason_Richards_25 @Alejandro Paz @John Schuster @ExpenseMaster @Amanda DeWitt

John Schuster · June 5

@Elise_Byron Great questions! Regarding importing historical transactions, every bank/card provider sets what's called a "scrape window".

This refers to how far back from the current date we are able to pull in historical expenses from a given connection. While some banks will allow a scrape window of 90 days, some will only allow 30, and some even less. Once the connection is in place, we'll have a better understanding on how far back we can pull, but I won't know until then, unfortunately.

As far as the expected date of release, we're also unsure of that. We've got quite a bit of the code done, but need to get a few more things put in place before we can release the connection. That said, I don't recommend waiting on the API connection, as I can't guarantee it would be released before next close, and would hate for you to be banking on it.

For now, I recommend importing via CSV, or pursuing a GL1025 feed if your company is eligible.

ijf · June 5

The CSV file, do you need a separate file upload for each card or can you upload one file with all the credit card numbers and then assign the appropriate card to the correct domain member?

Kirk Barrett · June 5

You will not need to upload each card individually. We have a great walkthrough on how to upload and assign cards via CSV here. Let us know if you have any trouble!

ijf · June 5

Thanks! I used those instructions, but was not clear that you could upload all of the card numbers and then assign...I missed that part. I was able to upload several spreadsheets using individual cards and assign to domain members. Now when I upload and submit a file I can't see the file in the drop down imported cards....

Maddy Lewis · June 5

Hi @ijf - Hmm, I might need some more specific details from you. Can you write to [email protected] so that our product support team can take a look in your account. That will help us diagnose the issue quicker.

Thank you!

ijf · June 5

They have the info already...sent at 1:23 CST.

Joanie Wang · June 5

Great, thanks for confirming @ijf I appreciate it. I'll let you continue with Concierge via the private thread then.

American Express Connection

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