Overview
Every deposit and withdrawal that comes in through your bank feed, or from a statement you import as a CSV file, lands on the Bank Feed page. You allocate each bank line: it becomes a record in your books, such as a payment on an invoice or an expense, a new expense or invoice, a refund, a bank transfer or a manual journal.
Beeswax does the first pass for you. It links payments you have already entered, suggests the invoice or expense a line is paying, and suggests how to book anything new. You check its work and confirm.
To open the page, choose Money, then the Bank Feed bar along the bottom of the menu (Allocate Bank Transactions).
Coming from Xero? Xero's Reconcile screen is what Beeswax calls Allocate. A Beeswax bank reconciliation checks your books against the bank statement (see Bank Reconciliation). Allocating a line records it in your books; it does not reconcile it. See the Banking Glossary.
Who Can Use It
| Owner | Super Admin | Accountant | Manager | Basic | Client | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open the Bank Feed page and allocate lines | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Switch Auto-book repeat merchants on or off | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
The page is part of every paid plan and the trial. It isn't available on the Free plan.
The Page
The page shows one bank account at a time. If you have more than one, choose Change Bank Account at the top right.
Each row is one bank line:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Date | The date on the bank line |
| Status | Review (waiting for you), Processing (being booked) or Allocated (booked) |
| Description | The bank's description |
| Amount | Money in is green, money out is red |
| Suggestion / Match | What Beeswax suggests, or the record the line is allocated to |
Use the filters to search the description, set a date range, show only Review or only Allocated lines, or only Expenses (money out) or Income (money in), then choose Go. If lines still waiting for review fall outside your date range, a banner tells you and offers Show all.
Hover over the arrows (») at the start of any suggestion to read why Beeswax chose it.
What Beeswax Does First
Every day, Beeswax brings in the new lines from your bank, and then works through them, including any from a CSV import. The lines come in at 05:30 UTC and are processed at 06:00 UTC (late afternoon in Australia, early morning in the UK). You don't need to start anything.
- Payments you've already entered. A payment on the same bank account, for the exact amount, dated within two weeks of the line, is simply linked to it, and the row shows Allocated.
- Several payments or invoices at once. If the line equals two or three payments you've entered, or two or three open invoices or expenses from the same business, Beeswax links or suggests them together (see Split payments below).
- Possible duplicates. If an equal payment is already linked to another bank line, or already ticked on a bank statement, the row is flagged instead of being paid twice.
- Open invoices and expenses. Beeswax looks for documents the line could be paying: the exact amount, the document's number in the bank description, or the business's name in the description for a part payment. Beeswax's built-in AI then picks the best one.
- When the AI is certain, and the line pays an outstanding invoice or expense in full, the payment is recorded for you and the row shows Allocated.
- Otherwise the row waits in Review with a Suggested match — not linked yet.
- Something new. When nothing in your books explains the line, the AI suggests how to book it: the business, the account and the tax. It can also mark a line as a Possible refund. If it can't suggest anything, the row shows No suggestion.
The daily run covers businesses with a connected bank feed. If you only import CSV statements, use the AI button on a row to analyse it (see Run the AI again below).
Confirming a Suggestion
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| Suggested match — not linked yet (an invoice or expense) | Check it, then choose the tick. Beeswax records the payment and links it to the bank line. |
| A suggested business, account and tax | If it's right, choose the green +. Beeswax creates the expense (or invoice) and pays it from the bank line in one step. |
Booking a Line Yourself
Choose the arrow at the end of a row to open it. If Beeswax found any candidates, they're listed under Potential Matches Found; choose Confirm beside the right one.
Below them, What would you like to do? lists every way to book the line. The list depends on the direction of the money:
| Money out | Money in |
|---|---|
| New Expense + Payment | New Invoice + Payment |
| Apply a Payment to an Expense | Apply a Payment to an Invoice |
| New Customer Refund + Payment | New Supplier Refund + Payment |
| Apply a Payment to a Customer Refund | Apply a Payment to a Supplier Refund |
| Create Bank Transfer | Create Bank Transfer |
| Create Manual Journal | Create Manual Journal |
New Expense + Payment (and the other "New … + Payment" options) opens a form with the business and the bank description already filled in. Pick the project (or Operating Expense / General Income), the account and the tax, and choose Save it.
One purchase can cover more than one thing. Choose Add Line Item to split the line across accounts. Beeswax shows what's left to allocate, and the lines must add up to the bank amount before you can save. The row shows Processing for a moment, and then Allocated.
Split payments
When one deposit pays several invoices from the same customer, the open row shows Split Payment Match — Confirm to record one payment per invoice. Choose Apply to All — Record N Payments and Beeswax records one payment for each invoice, all linked to the one bank line.
Run the AI again
If something has changed since Beeswax looked at a line, for example you've just entered the invoice it pays, choose the AI button on the row. Beeswax queues the line and refreshes the match.
Deleting a line
A line you don't need can be deleted with the bin button. This can't be undone, and a line that's already allocated can't be deleted.
To undo a match, remove the payment from the invoice or expense it was recorded on; the bank line goes back to Review.
Possible Duplicates
When a line looks like a duplicate of one that's already paid, Beeswax flags it rather than paying twice. The row explains which payment it duplicates. You can:
- choose the AI button to say it's not a duplicate, which clears the flag and runs the matching again;
- delete the line, when the same transaction is already linked to another bank line;
- choose the tick to link a split payment that was already ticked on a bank reconciliation to this bank line.
You can also book the line yourself from What would you like to do?.
Matching Scanned Receipts
Draft expenses created by scanning or emailing a receipt (see Incoming Expenses) are offered as matches when their bank payment arrives, so you link the bank line to the receipt you already captured instead of creating a duplicate.
- Paid from a same-currency account (for example a USD receipt paid from a USD wallet): offered when the bank amount equals the receipt total exactly.
- A foreign receipt paid on your normal card: the bank converts at its own rate, so the amounts differ by a few percent. Offered when the amount is within about 6% and the vendor's name appears in the bank description.
Confirming a receipt match adjusts the draft to the exact amount your bank settled, finalises it and records the payment. Receipt matches are never applied automatically.
Foreign-Currency Documents
Invoices and expenses in another currency (see Multi-Currency) are matched sensibly:
- Their outstanding amount is converted at the daily exchange rate before being compared with the bank line, and a match is offered within about 4% when the business's name is in the description.
- Confirming records the payment at the rate your bank actually settled and books the realised currency gain or loss. If the bank amount only covers part of the balance, a part payment is recorded.
- Cross-currency matches are never applied automatically.
Booking a line as a new expense or invoice on a foreign-currency bank account creates the document in that account's currency.
Auto-Book Repeat Merchants (beta)
For bills that come every month, Auto-book repeat merchants sits at the top of the page. It's off until the account owner turns it on; everyone else sees whether it's On or Off.
With it on, Beeswax books a new line by itself (creating and paying the expense or invoice) only when all of these hold:
- The AI is 100% confident in its suggestion.
- Your own recent bookings for that merchant agree: at least two of them, with the same business, account and tax, making up at least 80% of that merchant's bookings, and matching the AI's suggestion. Only bookings a person confirmed count.
- The amount is no more than three times the largest of those bookings.
- No payment of the same amount, already ticked on a bank reconciliation, sits within two weeks of the line.
Anything less certain still waits in Review. An auto-booked row shows Allocated; hover over its arrows to see which earlier bookings it followed. Turning the setting off stops further automatic bookings; entries already created are kept.
After Allocation
An allocated line's payment shows From Bank Feed, and its date and bank account are locked. When a bank reconciliation covers the line's date, the payment is ticked there for you and shows Reconciled. See Bank Reconciliation and the Banking Glossary.