{
  "question_id": "CG-P1B-FULL-014",
  "slug": "what-automatic-reconciliation-does-and-how-to-check-what-it-reconciled",
  "display_title": "Can reconciliation be performed automatically in my accounting software - what does an automatic reconcile actually do, and how do I turn it on and check what it reconciled?",
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  "summary": "Partly. In the systems documented here, the software automates matching, not the reconciliation itself. QuickBooks Online reads an uploaded statement and pairs it with your books; Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct match imported bank and credit card lines using rules. A person still clears what is left and completes the reconciliation. Turn automation on account by account, check both what it matched and what it skipped, and sign off the result yourself.",
  "body": "## Does my accounting software offer automatic reconciliation, and what is it called?\n\nThe feature has a different name, plan requirement and account coverage in each system, so start with your vendor's own help pages for your edition, not a general description.\n\n- **QuickBooks Online** calls it AI-powered reconciliation. It is available in QuickBooks Online Plus, QuickBooks Online Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite only. The separate Accounting AI auto-post feature, which matches direct deposit paychecks and payroll tax payments handled by Intuit QuickBooks Workforce or QuickBooks Desktop Payroll, and transactions for bills paid with QuickBooks Bill Pay, works in the bank feed, not in the reconcile workflow.\n- **Oracle NetSuite** calls it Intelligent Transaction Matching. It matches imported bank or credit card data with account transactions. Its auto-create rules go further: they can create and match deposits and charges for general ledger bank accounts, and charges and refunds for general ledger credit card accounts.\n- **Sage Intacct** matches transactions automatically using a rule set assigned to each account. Checking, savings and credit card accounts can be connected to a bank feed.\n\nThat gives three possible positions:\n\n1. **It is available and already running.** Find out what it has already done before you rely on any balance (see the checks below).\n2. **It is available but not switched on.** Read the prerequisites and scope first, then switch it on for one account.\n3. **It is not in your system, edition or plan, or not for this account.** Reconcile manually from the statement. A missing feature does not change what a reconciliation needs to prove.\n\n## Does it work for accounts that are not bank accounts?\n\nDo not assume it does. In the documentation for all three systems, automatic matching works on lines imported from a financial institution: bank accounts and credit card accounts. Loans, clearing accounts, payroll liabilities, prepaid expenses and other balance sheet accounts usually have no statement feed for the software to match against. Check your vendor's documentation for the exact account type. If it is not listed, reconcile that account yourself as part of your close.\n\n## What does an automatic reconcile actually do, and where does it stop?\n\nKeep three separate actions in mind. The software may propose matches, it may mark items as matched or cleared, or it may complete the period's reconciliation. The work left for you is different in each case.\n\n**QuickBooks Online.** AI-powered reconciliation is an optional step within the normal reconcile workflow. You upload the statement, and QuickBooks extracts its details and compares them with the transactions already in your books. It then groups the results for review: paired transactions, transactions from the statement period that are still waiting for review in the bank feed, and extra QuickBooks transactions that do not appear on the statement. It also points to likely causes of differences, such as timing differences, duplicate entries, manual entries, or transfers and deposits that have not cleared. You still select each transaction that matches the statement to add it to the reconciliation, and you finish the reconciliation yourself.\n\n**Oracle NetSuite.** When bank or credit card data is imported, reconciliation rules match the imported lines to account transactions. Any line the system cannot match goes to manual matching. Matched transactions are reconciled in a separate step on the Reconcile Account Statement page. Two NetSuite features go further than matching: when a bank line meets an auto-create rule's criteria, NetSuite creates an account transaction and matches it automatically, and with Automated Cash Application the system generates a batch of customer payments, applies them to open invoices and then matches and clears them automatically. Treat entries those features created as unreviewed until you have checked them.\n\n**Sage Intacct.** Transactions are matched automatically using the account's rule set. After that, you match or clear the rest by hand, and when the amount to reconcile is zero you select Reconcile to complete the reconciliation. A transaction shows as Cleared in register reports only after you finish the reconciliation with the Reconcile button.\n\nIn these systems the software proposes or records matches. NetSuite's Bank Data Import and Intelligent Transaction Matching help does not say whether those two features complete the reconciliation, so check the Reconcile Account Statement page for the items they matched or cleared before you treat them as reconciled. If your vendor's documentation says a feature marks statement lines as reconciled without anyone acting, treat those lines as unreviewed until you have checked them yourself.\n\n## How does it decide what to match?\n\nYou can supervise the automation only if you know its rules.\n\n- **NetSuite** applies default system rules that you cannot change or remove, and user rules that you create, edit and put in order. If a rule finds two or more possible matches, NetSuite does not pick one. You choose and match the correct transaction.\n- **Sage Intacct** matches only through the rules in the account's rule set, so reading that rule set tells you what it will act on.\n- **QuickBooks Online** compares the extracted statement data with the data already in QuickBooks.\n\nWhat this means in practice: items with a clear amount, date and reference are the ones a rule matches most readily — which is not the same as being right: the same amount can match the wrong date, so these still get sampled. What gets left behind is the ambiguous material: split deposits, combined payments, amounts that are nearly but not exactly equal, and entries made by hand. Those are the items that need a person.\n\n## How do I turn it on, and what does the setting cover?\n\nEach system turns the feature on in a different place:\n\n- **QuickBooks Online:** you use AI-powered reconciliation during a reconciliation by uploading the account statement, or by letting Statement Auto Import supply it. It is optional each time you reconcile, and you need one of the three eligible plans.\n- **NetSuite:** matching runs when bank data is imported or when you run reconciliation rules manually. To import a statement file, your role needs the Import Online Banking File permission. An Administrator can set up daily automatic imports on the Format Profile page. System rules cannot be changed or removed and match imported bank lines automatically; a user matching rule is created on the Reconciliation Rules page and can be applied to more than one account, while each auto-create rule can be used for one account only. Scope is therefore set in those rules, not per reconciliation.\n- **Sage Intacct:** each account needs a rule set before transactions can be matched automatically. The account's rule set decides what is matched.\n\nSwitch it on for one account at a time. Don't apply it to every account at once. An account you have been checking line by line, such as one with a known problem, a new bank or unusual activity, can stop getting that attention without anyone noticing once a rule starts matching its items.\n\n## How do I check what it matched and what it skipped?\n\nLook at two lists separately: what the automation acted on, and what it left behind.\n\n- **QuickBooks Online:** the Insights tab shows the statement comparison results, separating paired transactions from those still needing review and from extra QuickBooks transactions. After you finish, QuickBooks saves a reconciliation report, which you find on the Reconcile page under History by account. Transactions that auto-post handled in the bank feed carry an AUTO badge on the Posted tab.\n- **NetSuite:** to see what was matched automatically, go to Transactions > Bank > Match Bank Data and select Review. Lines the system could not match wait on the same page for manual matching.\n- **Sage Intacct:** the reconciliation page opens on unmatched Intacct transactions; when you reconcile from an import file or bank feed, select the Bank tab for the bank transactions, and filter the view to see matched items.\n\nNever assume that a skipped item doesn't matter. The skipped items are where an account's real exceptions end up: payments you never recorded, bank charges, duplicates, and deposits that never arrived.\n\n## How do I override or reverse what it did?\n\n- **Sage Intacct:** unmatch the transaction. The rule keeps matching other transactions but ignores the one you unmatched. If another transaction fits the rule, the next run will match the bank line to that one instead, so re-check the account after the rule set runs again.\n- **NetSuite:** where a rule found more than one candidate, you choose the correct transaction. Before you rely on the automatic matches, find the procedure for unmatching a transaction a rule matched wrongly in NetSuite's own Match Bank Data help for your version.\n- **QuickBooks Online:** nothing is reconciled until you select the transactions and finish, so leave any pairing you disagree with unselected. Undoing a reconciliation you have already finished is a separate procedure in your software.\n\nThe person who completes the reconciliation is still responsible for the result. The software is not.\n\n## What review must stay with a person for the reconciliation to remain a control?\n\nA reconciliation is a control only when someone other than the software confirms that the books agree with an outside statement and that every difference has been explained. Internal-control guidance calls for a monthly book-to-bank reconciliation, retained documentation that reconciling items were investigated and resolved, and a supervisor's initials and date on each reconciliation. The post-run checklist below adds its own checks for automatic runs, and the reconciliation is not a control until someone has worked through it.\n\nTwo mistakes undo the control. The first is treating a finished automatic run as evidence that the account is correct when nobody has looked at what it acted on. The second is treating matched bank-feed transactions as a reconciled account. Matching links downloaded lines to entries. Reconciling ties the account balance to an independent statement for the period.\n\n## What changes when one person records and reconciles, or the books face outside review?\n\nWhen the same person records transactions, approves them and reconciles the account, the reconciliation may be the only check left. Automation that clears items without a second person removes that check. In a small business it may not be possible to separate every cash duty, so rely on compensating controls instead. For example, an owner or outside accountant who records nothing can review the statement and the reconciliation each month and initial and date it. Setting up those checks is covered in the related question on separation of duties.\n\nIf a lender, CPA or other outside reviewer relies on your books, keep evidence for each period: the saved reconciliation report, the list of skipped and reconciling items with how each was investigated and resolved, and the reviewer's initials and date.\n\n## What should I check after every automatic run?\n\nWork through this list before you treat the period as reconciled:\n\n1. **Balance.** Does the statement ending balance and date match the statement document itself?\n2. **Acted on.** Scan the matched list. Are any matches between different amounts, dates or payees? Are any large items matched to something you don't recognize?\n3. **Passed over.** Open the unmatched lines on both sides. Does each one have a reason, such as a timing difference, a missing entry, a duplicate or a bank charge?\n4. **Still uncleared.** Are any outstanding items from earlier periods still uncleared? Set your own ageing trigger for the list — for example, anything still unmatched after one statement period — and investigate every item that passes it.\n5. **Difference.** Is the difference zero without a plug or adjusting entry you can't explain?\n6. **Sign-off.** Has someone other than the preparer, where possible, reviewed the report and initialed and dated it?\n7. **Retain.** Is the report saved with the list of exceptions and how each was resolved?\n\n## When should I leave it on, restrict it, or turn it off?\n\n- **Leave it on** for a high-volume account whose lines usually match cleanly, if someone completes the checklist above every period.\n- **Restrict it** by account or rule when an account is under investigation, has recently changed banks, or keeps producing wrong matches. In Sage Intacct the account's rule set is the place to narrow it. In NetSuite the system rules cannot be removed, so the control is your user rules and your review.\n- **Turn it off, or don't upload the statement,** when nobody will review what it did. If you use Statement Auto Import, do not treat the absence of an upload as an off switch; check whether a statement arrived that way.\n\nBecause names, plans and behavior change between releases, recheck your vendor's current help page for your edition whenever the reconcile screen changes.",
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      "title": "Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online",
      "publisher": "Intuit Inc.",
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      "slug": "what-is-a-bank-reconciliation-and-how-to-tie-the-books-to-the-bank",
      "display_title": "What is a bank reconciliation, who prepares it, and how do I tie the books to the bank (with a worked example)?"
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      "display_title": "How do I automate a bank reconciliation outside my accounting software, using a spreadsheet with macros or a scripting language?"
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      "question_id": "CG-MCE-017",
      "slug": "how-do-i-set-up-bank-rules-that-categorize-transactions-automatically-and-how-do",
      "display_title": "How do I set up bank rules that categorize transactions automatically, and how do I keep a bad rule from quietly miscoding my books?"
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      "question_id": "CG-MCE-023",
      "slug": "what-checks-can-a-very-small-business-put-in-place-when-the-same-person-records",
      "display_title": "What checks can a very small business put in place when the same person records, pays and reconciles?"
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  "question_text": "Can reconciliation be performed automatically in my accounting software - what does an automatic reconcile actually do, and how do I turn it on and check what it reconciled?",
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