Parse Legacy Transaction Descriptions | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a function to parse and clean unstructured transaction description strings from legacy bank feeds for Propel.

Implement parse_transaction_description(text), returning a dictionary with merchant, date, amount, and type. Extract dates in MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD format, monetary values with optional currency symbols and signs, and CR or DR indicators. Normalize dates to YYYY-MM-DD, convert amounts to positive floats, infer type from signs or indicators, and remove transaction labels, identifiers, and extracted fields from the merchant name. Return None for fields that cannot be extracted.

Constraints

text is a non-null string
Dates, when present, use MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD
Amounts, when present, contain at most two decimal places
The final monetary token is the transaction amount
Malformed or missing dates and amounts should produce None for those fields

Function Signature

def parse_transaction_description(text):

Your question is Parse Legacy Transaction Descriptions. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.

Problem

Write a function to parse and clean unstructured transaction description strings from legacy bank feeds for Propel.

Constraints

text is a non-null string
Dates, when present, use MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD
Amounts, when present, contain at most two decimal places
The final monetary token is the transaction amount
Malformed or missing dates and amounts should produce None for those fields

Function Signature

def parse_transaction_description(text):

Your question is Parse Legacy Transaction Descriptions. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.