Why is the online balance different from the actual Snapper balance?
The online transaction history is great for checking how much you've been spending and keeping an eye on your balance. Just like bank statements though, it's not always completely up to date, and here's why...
Your online balance and transaction history is updated every day with the transactions that the Snapper system has received so far. Transactions include every retail transaction such as buying a coffee or paying for your movie tickets, and a record of every time you tag on and off a bus or ferry.
Most retailers upload their daily transactions just once a day, and buses upload their trip data each time they return to the bus depot, which is usually at the end of the day. Because of this, your transaction history may not be completely up-to-date. That's why it's just like your bank statement: sometimes a transaction may have not been received yet. Also, every now and then, a bus may not go back to the depot until the end of the following day. When this happens, the data from that trip may not appear on your transaction history for a couple of days.
The great thing about Snapper is that the Snapper itself (your Snapper Red, or Snapper Sprat for example) is where the master data is stored, so the balance on your Snapper is always up-to-date. There are quite a few ways to get an up-to-date balance:
- check the display when you make a retail purchase with your Snapper - the balance is always shown on the Snapper reader
- if you're tagging on or off a bus and your balance is less than $12.00 you will hear the message "please check your balance". When you hear this message, your balance is displayed on the lower half of the bus reader in green
- download the MySnapper application to your computer.