Banking & Reconciliation

Banking keeps your SolaBooks cash and bank balances in step with reality. You register your bank accounts, import or enter bank statement lines, match them to transactions already in the books, categorise the rest, and run a reconciliation so the book balance and the statement balance agree.

Everything lives in the Accounts panel under Banking: "Bank Accounts", "Cheque Books", "Import Statements", and "Bank Rules".

Bank accounts

A bank account in SolaBooks is a Chart of Accounts entry of type Bank or Cash. The Bank Accounts page ("Manage cash & bank ledgers") lists them with their currency, status, net balance, latest statement / ledger balance, and a reconciliation badge (OK / Due / Overdue) so you can see at a glance which accounts need attention.

From the list you can Add Bank Account, open an account's ledger, start an Import Statement, or jump into reconciliation. An account marked "Enabled for posting" is available on payment forms; each bank account also carries its own cheque books for outgoing cheques.

An account's page shows its details (bank, account number, IBAN, currency), its Cheque Books, and a Reconciliation History panel with each period reconciled, its statement balance, and when it was reconciled.

Import Statements

1. Open Banking ▸ Import Statements ("Import and manage bank statement files") and click Start New Import, or use Import Statement on the bank account.
2. Pick the bank account and upload the statement file (CSV, OFX, QFX). Drag and drop works too.
3. For CSV files, map the file's columns — date, description, amount (single signed column or separate debit/credit columns), reference — then Apply Mapping. Date format, delimiter, and decimal separator can be adjusted; auto-detect handles most files.
4. Review the parsed rows. The import flags errors and suspected duplicates before anything is saved.
5. Click Commit Import. Imported lines are stored against the bank account, ready for reconciliation.

Importing is non-destructive: statement lines don't post anything to your books on their own — they're the "bank side" you'll match during reconciliation.

Bank Rules

Banking ▸ Bank Rules holds your transaction rules for bank categorisation. A rule matches incoming statement lines by description or payee text and amount range, and pre-assigns the right account, so repeated transactions (bank fees, standing transfers, subscriptions) categorise themselves.

Click New Rule, name it, set conditions such as "If description contains…", pick the account to assign, and set the Priority — rules run in priority order and the first match wins. Rules can be switched between Active and Inactive without deleting them.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the monthly check that your books agree with the bank's statement.

Start a reconciliation

1. Open the bank account and click New Reconciliation (or Reconcile from the Bank Accounts list).
2. Optionally choose Use imported statement (optional) — selecting an import auto-fills the statement window.
3. Set the Statement Start Date, Statement End Date, and the Statement Ending Balance from your paper or PDF statement. The suggested start date follows on from your last reconciled period so no gap opens up.
4. Click Start Reconciliation to open the Reconciliation Workspace.

Match in the workspace

The workspace shows two lists side by side: Bank Statement Lines (what the bank says happened) and Book Transactions (what SolaBooks says happened), each with its own search and amount filters.

• Auto-match All (Safe Exact) pairs lines that match exactly on amount and date — the safe bulk pass to run first.
• Select a bank line and the matching book transaction(s), then Match Selected. Top Suggestions are offered for the selected line. One bank line can match several book transactions as long as the amounts balance.
• Unmatch undoes a pairing; Undo Last Match steps back one action.
• Ignore sets aside a bank line that shouldn't be matched (e.g. a line that belongs to a different period); you can un-ignore it later.
• For real differences — bank fees, interest, small FX differences — use Create Adjustment / Create Adjusting Entry: pick the type, an offset account (e.g. a bank-fee expense), and a memo, and the workspace posts the adjusting entry for you.

Counters at the top track Cleared Balance, Diff (Bank - Book), and Remaining unmatched lines. The difference must reach zero before you can finish.

Finalize and lock

• When the difference is zero, click Finalize (confirm: "Finalize this reconciliation?"). The period is marked Reconciled.
• Reopen returns a reconciled period to draft if you find a mistake.
• Lock (confirm: "Lock this reconciliation?") makes it final — use it once the period is reviewed and reported.

A reconciliation is therefore Draft (in progress — you can leave and pick it up later with Continue Draft) → Reconciled (finalized) → Locked (final).

Common mistakes

• Duplicate import. Re-uploading a statement that overlaps a prior import creates duplicate lines. SolaBooks flags suspected duplicates during import review — skip the flagged rows rather than re-importing the whole file.
• "The difference won't reach zero and it equals one draft document." Drafts don't count toward the book balance. Post the draft (or void it), then finish the reconciliation.
• Wrong bank rule fired. Rules run in priority order. If a high-priority rule mis-categorised a line, edit the rule's conditions or its priority on the Bank Rules page.
• Can't find the payment to match. Open Payments with all filters cleared — a filter may be hiding the row, or the payment may still be a Draft.
• Multi-currency bank account. Import statements in the bank account's own currency. Base-currency values follow your exchange rates — see Multi-currency.

Tips

• Set up Bank Rules for recurring lines (bank fees, payroll outflows, standing transfers) so they categorise themselves on every future import.
• Reconcile monthly, not yearly. Catching a discrepancy in last month's statement is much easier than tracing one across the whole year.
• The reconciliation badge on the Bank Accounts list (OK / Due / Overdue) tells you which accounts are behind; banking reports under Reports show reconciliation status across periods.

Behaviour and rules

• Reconciliation does not post journals — it confirms existing transactions. Creating an adjusting entry from the workspace does post.
• Import is non-destructive. Imported lines wait to be matched or categorised; nothing hits the ledger on import alone.
• Period locks still apply to any transaction or adjustment you create while reconciling — see Fiscal years and lock dates.
• Once a reconciliation leaves Draft, its statement dates can't be changed — Reopen it first.

Related

• Chart of Accounts — bank and cash accounts are chart entries.
• Cheque books — track outgoing cheques per bank account.
• Payments — match imported statement lines against payment rows.
• Bills, Invoices, Expenses — source documents for the transactions you're matching.
• Multi-currency — foreign-currency bank accounts.
• Fiscal years and lock dates — locks apply to adjustments made while reconciling.
• Reports — banking reports, cash flow, reconciliation status.