Reconcile bank lines against invoices

What reconciliation does

Reconciliation matches every line on your bank statement to a posting in your books. When it is complete, your bank account balance on the balance sheet equals the actual balance at the bank. This is the single most important monthly hygiene step in accounting, every other report depends on it.

The workbench layout

Open Banking, then Reconciliation and pick an account. The page has two columns:

• Left: bank lines (imported from your bank statement as a CSV, OFX or QFX file) that have not been matched yet.
• Right: open invoices, recorded expenses, and bills that have not been matched to a bank line yet.

Each unmatched bank line shows a confidence-ranked list of suggested matches underneath it. Suggestions consider amount (exact match, ±2c rounding tolerance), date proximity, reference number, and historical pairing patterns.

Matching a receipt to an invoice

Click the suggested invoice. The line and the invoice both turn green and slide into the Matched today strip at the top. The invoice flips to Paid and the matching journal posts in the background:

• Dr Bank
• Cr Accounts Receivable

If no suggestion is right, click Find to search every open invoice across the tenant.

Creating an expense from a bank line

For a payment that does not match any existing record (a supplier you have not yet billed in, a card fee, a one-off purchase), click Create expense on the bank line. A side panel opens with the amount and date pre-filled. Pick the category, supplier and tax code, and save. The expense posts and the bank line is auto-matched in one step.

Bank rules

For recurring patterns, your software subscriptions, rent, the same petrol station, set up a rule once and the bank line is auto-categorised forever. From Banking, then Bank Rules:

• Match by contains text, exact text, amount equals, or amount range
• Apply category, supplier, tax code, and tracking category in one go
• Run Re-apply to backfill existing unmatched lines

Well-tuned rules take care of the traffic that repeats every month, leaving only the exceptions for you to review.

When the balance does not reconcile

The footer of the workbench shows: bank balance (per the statement you imported) vs book balance (per your GL). If they diverge, the difference is either an unmatched bank line, an unrecorded payment, or a duplicate. The workbench filters down by date range to help you triangulate. Once both balances tie, click Mark period reconciled to lock it.