Hmmm. I just got an Amazon Store Card (the synchrony one) for this purpose. But did they change the behavior? I’m seeing the most recent purchase in the “activity” section online as just having a description of AMAZON MARKETPLACE SEATTLE WA. Have you noticed if this still loads the item in the description for you?
EDIT: Perhaps the fact that the transaction is “pending” matters?
My most recent Amazon Store Card transaction is from 6/3, and here is the description it brought in:
“Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Diapers Size 0, 128 Count - PA”
Great, thank you! I’m hoping then it’s just a function of it being a “Pending” transaction and it’ll show up in the final version. I also partially paid with the sign-up credit so maybe that interfered with this one purchase.
Once the transaction posts and it feeds into Tiller, hopefully it will bring the description in. For illustration, here are all my recent Amazon transactions feeding through the Store Card. I use my Chase Amazon card only for Whole Foods purchases so I can code those as Groceries via AutoCat, and then all the Synchrony Amazon card transactions get coded as Amazon (and then I will manually update some to other categories based on the description).
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Diapers Size 0, 128 Count - PA
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Apple Earpods Headphones with Shipping and Tax
Amazon Marketplace Seattle Wa. Paprma 12" X 20" Plastic Produ Shipping and Tax
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Belkin Rockstar 5-jack Multi H Shipping and Tax
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Nalgene Hdpe Wide Mouth Bpa-fr
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Hydro Flask Accessory Medium S Shipping and Tax
Amazon Retail Seattle Wa. Toysmith Mini Beamo 16" Flying Shipping and Tax
Amazon Marketplace Seattle Wa. Squatchi Shoe Sizer for Baby Shipping and Tax
Amazon Marketplace Seattle Wa. Bapronbaby Rainbow Watercolor
Thanks so much! That would be so worth it to have the transactions labeled automatically like that. I really hope it works for me as well.
I just thought I’d come back and verify that this does, indeed, still work. Once the transactions finally moved from “pending” to complete it had the item description right there in the description of the charge.
This will be really handy, combined with the Amazon Day delivery option!
My only issue is that this card is odd, it’s not a real credit card. They said it won’t have an expiration date nor a CVC code, it’s only for use at Amazon. That’s all fine, but I’d like for my wife to be able to use it as well and it remains to be seen if that will be possible. It does allow me to add authorized users though, so I’m hoping if I add her she can somehow make it a payment method on Amazon.
Okay, it’s not the best UI design, but it turns out I was easily able to add the card to my wife’s account after adding her as an authorized user.
I just had to go to her payment methods and choose to add a credit card. I got tripped up because it looked like that form was going to require an expiration date and CVC code. But once I entered in the Amazon Store Card number the web form changed and it removed those options and said my card didn’t have either. I added her name, and since she’s an authorized user it seemed to go through fine.
Thanks so much, @Caroleen , for the suggestion! I didn’t know about Amazon Store Cards or that they worked this way but this will be so nice.
Sorry, one more follow up to say this card was sooooo worth it. It’s been working great so far. I have to be sure to only do single purchases, but with Prime and Amazon Delivery Day that’s not been an issue.
I did want to see what happens if I combine orders that I know are in the same category. Does it list one of the items in the description or just nothing?
That’s great! I discovered this myself by total accident when one of my clients happened to have the Amazon store card – I hadn’t even heard of it but I was amazed by what her Tiller sheet was bringing in and had to figure out how and why it was working this way for her!
My experience is that with multiple items, they just all get listed in the description one after the other (but under one line item). Bundling like purchases together (e.g. all your pet food in one order) could make it easier to do faster categorization so you’d only have one pet food line item instead of five different ones. But then it’s more work on the purchasing end of things to be sure you’re bundling things correctly. You could also use the splitting tool, but then you’re back to needing to look up the prices of the various items, so you’re only one step ahead of the previous set up so this isn’t super helpful. I think putting the effort into purchasing in bundles and the categorizing the bundle is going to be the easiest overall to get this level of precision in your data.