Ambivo Books User Guide
DocsUG-031
Bank Transactions and Reconciliation
Auto-match, manual matching, excluding, creating expenses inline
The Bank Transactions screen is where bank-feed data and your books meet. Every transaction pulled in from a connected or manual bank account lands here and waits to be matched to something already in your books — an invoice you sent, a bill you recorded, a payment you keyed in. Once matched, it disappears from the unmatched list and your reconciliation gets a step closer to done.
This guide walks through the matching workflow, the alternative actions (excluding lines, creating expenses on the fly), and how to reconcile a full statement at month-end.
Why Reconciliation Matters
Reconciliation is the process of proving that what your bank says happened actually matches what your books say happened. The Bank Transactions screen turns this into a transaction-by-transaction grind:
- A line lands from the bank feed
- You match it to an entry already in your books, or
- You create a new entry for it (an expense, a deposit), or
- You exclude it (transfers between your own accounts, refunds you do not want to book)
When the unmatched list is empty for a date range, that bank account is reconciled for that range.
Getting There
- Click Bank Transactions in the left sidebar
- The list shows every imported bank line with status, account, date, amount, and description
Filter at the top by:
- Search — by description, payee, reference
- Account — show only one bank account
- Status — Unmatched, Auto-matched, Manual-matched, Created, Excluded (or "All")
A built-in date-range filter is on the roadmap; for now, the list is sorted by date so you can scroll to the period of interest.
Bank Transaction Statuses
The system tracks five statuses internally; the UI groups them into three buckets that matter day to day.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Unmatched | The line is in your feed but not yet linked to anything in your books. Action required. |
| Auto-matched | Linked to a Books transaction by the Auto-Match action (amount + date + customer/vendor agreement). |
| Manual-matched | Linked to a Books transaction by you, by hand. |
| Created | A new Books transaction was created from this bank line (e.g., via "Create Expense" or "Match to Invoice / Bill"). |
| Excluded | Deliberately ignored — typically internal transfers, duplicates, or lines you do not want on the books. |
Auto-matched, manual-matched, and created all behave the same way for reconciliation purposes — together they are "the matched bucket."
Auto-Match
The fastest way to clear most of the list is Auto-Match.
Steps
- From Bank Transactions, click Auto-Match at the top
- Books scans every Unmatched transaction and applies a multi-factor matching algorithm — comparing amount, date, account, and customer/vendor signals against existing Books transactions. Each suggestion carries a confidence score.
- High-confidence matches are applied automatically — the bank line moves to Auto-matched
What Happens Next
You see a summary: how many were matched, how many remain. The remaining ones need manual handling. Lower-confidence matches surface as suggestions when you click into a line; you accept the right one or pick a different action.
Auto-match is conservative — it will not match if any of the criteria are even a little off. If you have lots of close-but-not-quite matches (different cents, off by a day), you will work through them manually.
Matching Manually
For lines Auto-Match did not pick up:
Steps
- Click the unmatched bank line
- Books shows suggested matches based on amount + date proximity
- Pick the right one and click Match
- Or, click Match to invoice / Match to bill to search the unpaid list
What Happens Next
- The bank line moves to Manual-matched (or Created if a new Books transaction was generated) with a link back to the Books transaction
- The Books transaction now references the bank line
- The pair shows up together when you open either
Match to Invoice (Customer Receipt)
When the bank line is a customer payment that has not yet been recorded in Books:
- Click the unmatched line
- Click Match to Invoice
- Pick the customer and the unpaid invoice(s)
- Books creates a Client Receipt, posts it, and assigns it to the invoice
- The bank line moves to Matched
This is the fastest way to record incoming payments — let the bank tell you what arrived, then click through to clear the invoice.
Match to Bill (Vendor Payment)
When the bank line is an outgoing payment for a bill that is in Books but not yet marked paid:
- Click the unmatched line
- Click Match to Bill
- Pick the vendor and the unpaid bill(s)
- Books creates a Supplier Payment, posts it, and assigns it to the bill
- The bank line moves to Matched
Create Expense
For bank lines that are not tied to a bill — small purchases, recurring subscriptions, fees — create the expense inline:
- Click the unmatched line
- Click Create Expense
- Pick the Vendor (or leave blank for an unspecified payee)
- Pick the Expense account (e.g., "Software Subscriptions")
- Confirm the amount and date
- Click Save
What Happens Next
Books creates a Cash Purchase transaction (debit Expense, credit Bank), posts it, and matches the bank line.
This avoids creating a fictitious "bill" for every small expense and keeps your AP free of debris.
Excluding a Bank Line
Some bank lines should not affect your books at all:
- Transfers between your own bank accounts — both sides appear in the feed, but only one needs a Books entry
- Duplicate transactions that the bank reported twice
- Personal expenses mistakenly run through the business card (and reimbursed separately)
Exclude them so they no longer clutter your unmatched list.
Steps
- Click the line
- Click Exclude
- Confirm
Excluded lines stay in the database (so you can review later) but do not show up in the unmatched view by default.
To bring one back:
- Filter the list by Excluded
- Click the line
- Click Include
Reconciling a Full Statement
At month-end (or weekly, ideally), reconcile each connected account against its bank statement.
Steps
- Filter Bank Transactions to one account and the statement date range
- Run Auto-Match
- Manually match or Create Expense for the remaining unmatched lines
- Exclude any lines that should not be on the books (transfers, duplicates)
- Confirm the unmatched list is empty
- Compare the closing balance shown in Books to the closing balance on the bank statement — they should match
If they do not match, the gap is almost always:
- A pending bank transaction that has not posted yet
- A Books transaction with the wrong date
- A duplicate journal entry
- A transfer that was matched on one side but not the other
Common Questions
Why does Auto-Match miss some obvious pairs?
Auto-match is strict about amount and date. If the date is more than a few days apart, or the amount is off by even a cent, it will not match. Use manual matching for those.
A bank line is duplicated — what should I do?
Exclude one of them. The bank or Stripe FC occasionally double-reports. Excluding leaves the original in your audit trail.
I matched to the wrong invoice
Open the bank transaction and click Unmatch, then re-match correctly. The Books transaction goes back to its prior state; the bank line returns to Unmatched.
I created an expense by mistake
Open the resulting transaction and void it. The bank line goes back to Unmatched.
Can I match one bank line to multiple Books entries?
Yes — useful when one deposit covers multiple invoices. Pick all the invoices on the Match dialog; Books splits the assignment across them.
Can I match multiple bank lines to one Books entry?
Less common, but yes — useful for partial payments or when a customer paid in chunks that hit the bank separately. Each bank line carries its own assignment to the same invoice.
My bank balance and Books balance don't agree
Run the Bank Reconciliation report (or Account Statement) to see the difference. Look for unmatched lines in Bank Transactions and missing/duplicate entries in the Books account statement.
Should I exclude or delete a bank line?
Exclude — never delete. Excluded lines are recoverable; deleted ones are not. Books does not actually offer "Delete" for bank lines for this reason.
Tips and Best Practices
- Reconcile weekly, not monthly. A week of unmatched lines takes ten minutes; a month takes hours.
- Sync before you reconcile. Pulling in the latest transactions at the start saves you from doing the work twice.
- Match the obvious things with Auto-Match first, then deal with the leftovers manually.
- Exclude internal transfers consistently — pick the side you want to book (e.g., the receiving account) and exclude the other.
- Use Create Expense for small recurring charges like SaaS subscriptions. There is no value in creating a bill for them.
- Investigate stubborn unmatched lines. Big mystery transactions are sometimes fraud or bank errors — catching them quickly matters.
- Don't exclude something you don't understand. It is easier to leave it unmatched and ask than to lose track of it.