Reconciling transactions

Reconciliation is telling Arvello what each bank transaction actually was: a client paying an invoice, a supplier being paid, salary, tax, or money moving between your own accounts. Each answer creates the right bookkeeping entry behind the scenes — which is what keeps your reports and VAT figures truthful.

Every transaction sits in one of three states: Needs review (nothing decided yet), Done (matched or categorised, with a journal entry behind it) and Personal / Excluded (not business activity). The aim: nothing left in Needs review.

The Needs Attention screen

Banking → Needs Attention is where reconciliation happens. Two counters show how many transactions need review and how many already have a suggestion attached. Below them, Arvello presents one transaction at a time — date, amount, who paid or was paid, the reference — with Previous, Next and Skip controls. When the queue reaches zero you get an "All caught up" message and a brief burst of confetti, which is as excitable as accounting software ought to get.

Matching a transaction

When Arvello has a likely invoice, a "Possible match" banner shows it. Confirm records the payment, creates the journal entry and marks both as done; Not this dismisses the suggestion. If the reference matches but the amount doesn't, it's flagged as a possible partial payment — confirming records a part-payment, and a progress bar tracks what remains to allocate.

With no suggestion (or after rejecting one), the "What is this payment?" grid lists the realistic options for the money's direction — for money out: a business expense, a match to an existing expense, salary or board fees, a tax payment to EMTA, dividends, loan repayments, an equipment purchase and so on; for money in: an invoice payment, owner investment, tax refund, other income or asset sale. Each opens a short form and Arvello takes care of the journal entry. Recording a business expense opens an expense form pre-filled from the transaction that reconciles itself on save, and an invoice payment with no invoice yet can create one inline.

What auto-matching does on its own

Auto-matching runs after every import and sync, and again whenever you finalise an invoice or expense. It acts without asking only when the evidence is strong:

• the invoice number appears in the payment reference or description and the amount equals exactly what's outstanding, or
• exactly one open invoice matches the amount and the counterparty's name or IBAN agrees with the invoice contact.

Payments to EMTA are recognised from the tax board's official account details and recorded as tax payments automatically, with interest and penalties routed to their own account. Auto-matched transactions carry a note saying so, and like everything else here, they can be undone. Anything with weaker evidence — an amount that matches but nothing else, a reference against a different amount — is only ever suggested, never decided for you.

Working through a busy account

There is no tick-box bulk select — deliberately. The bulk work happens before you arrive: auto-matching clears invoice payments, EMTA payments handle themselves, and reconciliation rules absorb the repeating costs, leaving the spotlight queue for what genuinely needs a human. From All Transactions, Categorise on any pending row jumps into the queue at that transaction.

Excluding transactions

Some movements aren't business activity at all — most commonly transfers between your own accounts, which would otherwise inflate both income and spending. Choosing Transfer Between Accounts (or Not business / Exclude) marks the transaction as excluded: it stays visible in the history, but no journal entry is created, so it never touches the profit and loss, balance sheet or VAT return. If both accounts are in Arvello, each side of the transfer has its own transaction — exclude both legs. Excluded by mistake? Undo Exclude puts it back.

The full history

Banking → All Transactions is the ledger-eye view: totals for inflows, outflows, net and unmatched, then every transaction with its status and category. Filter by status, direction or bank account, or search by text. The category column shows what each transaction became — "Invoice Payment" for matched invoices, otherwise the account it was posted to — and each row offers the relevant undo (Undo Match, Undo Categorise, Undo Exclude), returning the transaction to Needs review without drama. The unreconciled counter on your dashboard links here, pre-filtered to pending.