Bank reconciliation, and the matching that comes before it

Reconciling is not the hard part. Categorising four hundred lines before you can reconcile is the hard part, and doing it again next month because nothing remembered what you decided.

Matching first

Import a statement and Elvira looks for what each line already is in your books: an invoice paid, a bill settled, a transfer between your own accounts. What it recognises is proposed, never posted behind your back. You confirm.

Then it stops asking

• Rules: a line whose description contains this belongs to that account, and optionally that payee. Separately for money in and money out.
• And without a rule, it looks at how you treated the same payee last time and suggests it.
• So the second month is a fraction of the first, and the twelfth is minutes.

Reconciliation that means something

A finished reconciliation locks what it covers: the amount, the date and the bank account of every transaction in it. Everything else stays editable: the description, the reference, which expense account it lands in, who it belongs to.

That distinction is the whole point. A tied-out month should not be able to change under you, but you should still be able to correct a typo in a memo without undoing a reconciliation to do it. To change a locked figure you undo or reopen the reconciliation first: deliberately, and on the record.

And the cheques that have not cleared

Post-dated cheques sit in a clearing account rather than the bank, so the customer’s balance is settled while the money is not yet there. On the due date they clear into the bank, which is what makes the reconciliation work.