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Bank reconciliation

Link each bank transaction to the invoice, expense or salary it settles, to keep your payment statuses up to date.

Accounting7 min read
Table of contents+

Bank reconciliation means linking each line of your statement to the document it settles. Bill Alps compares your transactions with your invoices, expenses and payslips, applies what is certain and leaves the rest for you to decide. Your documents are then marked as paid, on the date of the bank transaction.

1. What Bill Alps compares

Reconciliation runs after each statement import. It only considers documents that are still open, in the same currency as the transaction:

  • An incoming payment is compared with invoices that are Ready, Sent or Overdue. A draft or a cancelled invoice is never proposed.
  • An outgoing payment is compared with the documents marked To pay on the Expenses page, all types combined, and with payslips that have no payment date, in CHF only.

A document already marked as paid by hand is no longer proposed. A reversal transaction flagged by the bank in a camt file is never reconciled.

2. The three levels of match

  • Exact matches: applied automatically. An invoice is recognised by its QR reference or its number, with the right amount. An expense is recognised by its QR or RF payment reference, even if the amount differs, or by the vendor's IBAN or the document number, with the right amount. A salary is recognised by the employee's IBAN, or by their name and the net amount, around the salary month.
  • Probable matches: to be checked. Same amount and client or vendor name, the sum of two or three invoices from the same client (Sum of invoices), an exact reference or invoice number with a different amount (Partial amount), or a second payment for the same document (Duplicate payment?).
  • Possible matches: to be checked carefully. Only the amount and the period match. Several candidates means that other documents have the same amount, Single candidate that there is only one.

The amount must match within 5 centimes for an invoice or an expense, and within 1 franc for a net salary. The period runs from 5 days before the document date to 90 days after the due date for an invoice, and to 60 days after the due date for an expense (120 days after the document date if it has no due date). For a salary, it runs from the previous month to the following month.

3. Review the proposals

  1. Open AccountingBank, Reconciliation tab, or click Review proposals at the end of an import.
  2. In To review, compare the transaction, on the left, with the proposed document, on the right. The badges show the reasons for the proposal.
  3. Click Accept if the document is the right one, Reject if not.

When a group of exact or probable matches contains several rows, Accept all approves them in one go. This button does not exist for possible matches: check them one by one. A rejected match is no longer proposed, and both the transaction and the document remain free.

The page shows the calendar year in which the chosen period ends. Reconciliations that are already applied, automatic or not, are found under Reconciled. An exact match only remains to be reviewed if it could not be applied, for example when the person who imported the statement does not have Write access to the module of the document.

4. What changes on the document

  • Invoice: it becomes Paid, on the date of the bank transaction. A Ready invoice is also considered sent.
  • Expense: it becomes Paid, with the date of the transaction as its payment date.
  • Payslip: it shows Paid on followed by the date of the transaction.
  • Transaction: a badge next to the description shows the linked document. Hover over it to read the details.

5. Handle a transaction with no proposal

If you know which document it relates to, link it by hand:

  1. In the Transactions tab, click the row.
  2. In Edit transaction, click Reconcile….
  3. Choose Invoice, Supporting document or Salary, then search by number, name or amount. Without a search, the most recent open documents are shown.
  4. Click the document. The reconciliation is applied straight away, with no confirmation.

The document must be open and in the same currency as the transaction. The amount is not checked: verify it before clicking. Only the document types whose module is active, and for which you have Write access, are shown. In the Reconciled list, this reconciliation carries the Manual link label.

If the document does not exist yet, create it, then click Run matching again in the Reconciliation tab. Bill Alps re-examines the transactions of the displayed year that have no active link, applies the exact matches and adds the others to the proposals to review.

A transaction with no document to link, such as bank fees or a transfer between your own accounts, can stay unlinked. Add a comment or a color to find it again easily. For its accounting treatment, ask your trustee.

6. Undo a reconciliation

  1. Open the Reconciliation tab, then Reconciled.
  2. On the row concerned, click Unlink. The same button is found in Edit transaction.
  • The invoice returns to its previous status. A Sent invoice whose due date has passed goes back to Overdue.
  • The expense goes back to To pay, and the payslip loses its payment date.
  • If a transaction settled several invoices, they are all unlinked together.
  • If you have changed the status of the document by hand in the meantime, Bill Alps does not touch it.

To send reminders for invoices that remain unpaid, see the guide on tracking payments and reminders.