Key takeaways
- Confirm the statement is complete and continuous before matching a single line: every page, every account, opening balance equal to the last closing balance.
- Match in order of certainty: fees and interest, then known counterparties, then everything else, recording partial and multi-invoice payments as such.
- A reconciliation always ends with two lists, money no document explains and documents no payment explains, and each item needs a named reason.
- Close by agreeing the ledger balance to the statement, recording what was decided and why, and carrying the open items into next period's file.
01Before you match anything
Most reconciliations that go wrong go wrong before the first match, because the statement being reconciled is not the whole statement. Five checks first.
- Every page is there. Page numbers run without gaps, and the last page carries the closing balance.
- Every account is there. Current account, savings, card accounts and any foreign-currency account the client holds. A payment that seems to have no match often left from an account nobody sent.
- The opening balance agrees with last period's closing balance, on the statement and in the ledger. If it does not, the difference belongs to last period and is fixed there first.
- The running balance is continuous. Each line's balance equals the previous balance plus or minus the line. A break means a missing page, a misread line or a statement that was edited.
- The period matches. Statement dates cover the period the books are being closed for, no more and no less.
Where a tool extracts the statement, the same checks apply to its output. Pileform reads each transaction's running balance alongside its date, counterparty hint, amount, direction and type, which makes the continuity check a comparison rather than a retyping exercise. It reads statement files you already have; it does not connect to the bank.
02Matching, in order of certainty
Match the easy lines first, so the hard ones are visible and few.
- Bank charges, interest and card fees. They have a standard treatment and rarely need a document. Code them and move on.
- Known counterparties. Regular suppliers, rent, utilities, payroll transfers. Match each to its invoice or its recurring entry, and check the amount, not just the name.
- Payments that settle several invoices. Record the allocation across each invoice. A single transfer that pays three invoices is three matches, not one guess.
- Partial payments. A payment four euros short of its invoice is matched with a residue, and the residue is a finding, not rounding.
- Receipts from customers. Match them to sales invoices the same way, with the same care about part payments.
- Everything else. What remains goes to a person with the amount and date showing.
This is the step software shortens most. On bank statement automation, Pileform runs the same order in tiers: transaction-type defaults, then a fuzzy match against the counterparties it already knows for that company, then the chart of accounts, then a person, with allocations across several invoices recorded rather than implied. The reconciliation post shows the join line by line; this checklist is the frame around it.
03The remainders and the awkward lines
When matching stops, two lists are left, and a finished reconciliation names a reason for every item on both.
- Money no document explains. Payments with nothing opposite them. Ask the client; do not park them in a suspense account without a note of who was asked and when.
- Documents no payment explains. Receipts and invoices in the period that no statement line settles. Paid in cash, paid from another account, not yet paid, or a duplicate: each is a different answer with a different entry.
Then the lines that need a second look even when they match:
- Duplicates. The same invoice in the pile twice, or already posted last period.
- Foreign-currency payments. The bank's rate and the invoice's currency rarely agree to the cent; record the difference as what it is.
- Transfers between the client's own accounts. Both sides should appear, on both statements, and net to nothing.
- Reversals and refunds. A charge and its reversal should both be matched, not both ignored.
- Director and related-party payments. Personal spending from the company account needs its own treatment and its own note.
04Closing and sign-off
The reconciliation is closed when four things are true and written down.
- The balances agree. The ledger's bank balance at period end equals the statement's closing balance, after the timing items (payments recorded but not yet cleared, receipts in transit) are listed individually.
- Every open item has a reason and an owner. Who is chasing it, and by when.
- The entries are posted. Matched transactions are in the ledger as double-entry rows, not a one-column list.
- The file shows its working. The statement, the matched documents and both remainders are kept together, so the next person, or an auditor, can follow each decision.
Carry the open items into next period's reconciliation as its first check. In Pileform, confirmed transactions post as double-entry rows to Xero, QuickBooks, Business Central, BTMS or Esoft, and nothing posts until a person confirms it. For how the software side compares, see bank reconciliation software.
Complete statement, matching in order of certainty, two remainders with reasons, balances agreed and written down: the same four stages every period, whoever or whatever does the first pass.
Pileform reads statement PDFs you already have, matches transactions to documents in tiers, lists both remainders and posts confirmed double-entry rows. It never connects to a bank and never moves money.