Match a bill to a bank transaction

Matching tells TALISK_HQ that a bank transaction paid a specific bill, which records the payment and clears the bill from Accounts Payable. There are two ways in:

• From the bill (Ledger › Expenses): click the approved bill's purple Match pill, then pick the bank transaction that paid it.
• From the bank line (Ledger › Banking): open the transaction's match picker and choose the bill it paid.

The bill must be Approved first, and the bank transaction must still be unmatched. The Banking-side picker is single-select: one bill per transaction. When a single bank payment covered several bills, start from the bill side instead and use the combine pane.

Bills the picker deliberately leaves out

Two kinds of document never appear in the list, because matching is not how they get settled.

• A bill someone paid out of their own pocket, whether that was you personally or a team member. Your supplier was already paid at the till, so there is no supplier balance for a bank line to clear. What is still outstanding is what the business owes that person, so the bank line that settles it is the one repaying them: see "Pay someone back".
• A receipt, which is proof of a payment you already made. A receipt clears against its own bank line rather than through bill matching: see "Receipts vs bills".

Both stay out of the list permanently, so a reimbursed bill from months ago will not keep resurfacing against every payment you open.

Paid from an account with no bank feed

If the bill was paid out of an account that never sends statements (a customs or CARM import balance, a sales-tax balance, a line of credit your bank doesn't export), there is no transaction to pick. The bill's match picker offers Record the payment for exactly this case: choose the account, the date, and the amount, and TALISK_HQ creates the transaction, matches it, and records the payment in one step. The amount starts at what the bill still owes; enter less to record a part-payment, and the rest stays owing. You can't record more than the bill owes.

The description is what the new line is called in that account's list of transactions. It starts as the supplier's name and invoice number, but you can change it to whatever you'll recognise later.

If the account you pick does import statements, TALISK_HQ warns you: the same payment will arrive again with the next import, so it's usually better to wait and match the imported line instead.

When TALISK_HQ asks instead of matching for you

TALISK_HQ matches a bill to a charge on its own only when it has more than the amount and the date to go on: the charge also has to look like it came from that supplier. Two unrelated things can land on the same amount on the same day, and booking a payment against the wrong supplier is not a mistake you would notice.

So when the amount and date line up but the supplier does not, TALISK_HQ puts the pairing in Suggested matches needing review instead of recording it. You confirm it with one tap, and nothing is recorded until you do.

The usual reason a supplier "does not look like" itself is that your statement calls it something else: Amazon appears as AMZN MKTP, Wayfair as WF/. Add those under Statement names on the vendor (Ledger › Expenses › Vendors) and TALISK_HQ will match them on its own from then on.

Some charges can never be recognised by name. An e-transfer to a person is the usual case, where the statement shows the person's name and the bill shows their business. Those stay one-tap confirmations, which is the right outcome: they are exactly the pairings worth a human glance.

Checking what TALISK_HQ matched on its own

When the amount, the date and the supplier all agree, TALISK_HQ records the payment without asking. That is usually what you want, but it means some payments get recorded while you are not looking, so there is a place to see them.

On Ledger › Expenses, open What TALISK_HQ matched for you. Each row shows the pair on two lines, Bill above Bank line, each with its own date and amount, plus the bill's number and the account the charge landed on. Under them is the evidence TALISK_HQ used: whether the supplier name agreed, how many days apart they were, and whether the amount was exact. A pairing where the supplier name did not agree is marked check this one.

Click either line to open it. The Bill line opens that bill on this page, even when it is dated outside the period you are viewing; the Bank line opens the charge on Ledger › Banking. That is how you check a pairing you are unsure about before deciding.

• Looks right marks it reviewed and takes it off the list. This only records that you looked. It changes no amounts and posts nothing.
• All clear does the same for everything showing at once.
• Not right undoes the match: the payment is reversed off that bill and the bank line goes back to your unmatched list. The bank line itself is kept, because the money did leave your account.

Nothing here is a deadline. The list is a place to look, not something to get to zero. Tick Show ones I already cleared to go back to something you cleared earlier and put it back on the list.

Both lists follow the period at the top of the page, on the bill's date, the same way the list of bills below them does. Set the period to a past year to go back and check that year's matches. A line above the list says how many sit outside the period you are viewing, so narrowing it never hides anything quietly. The count in the panel's own header ignores the period on purpose: it is your reminder that something is waiting somewhere, and it should not go quiet because you were looking at last quarter.

Nothing ever leaves the cleared list, so on a busy account it grows long. Tabs beside the tick box choose how many to show: 10, 25, 50 or All, newest first, starting at 10. Whenever some are being held back, the same line says how many there are in total, so you always know what you are not looking at. All tops out at 500 within one period, and says so; narrow the period to reach the rest.

Why it is worth an occasional glance: if a payment is recorded against the wrong bill, your books still balance, because the money left your account either way, so nothing looks broken. What you would notice instead is the other bill still sitting unpaid weeks later. Checking here is quicker than that.