Manual Matching & Unmatching
After the machines have their turn, the interesting lines remain: the deposit with a garbled reference, the payment that cleared six weeks late, the two candidates with identical amounts. The workspace's two-pane view is built for exactly this — you, both sides of the story, and a match that commits only when you say so.
Access you'll need. Matching and unmatching requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view the reconciliation but not match or change it.
Matching by hand
Pick the statement line
Left pane: Unmatched Bank Transactions, with search and filters (deposits/payments, matched/unmatched). Select the line needing an explanation.
Let the candidates sort themselves
The right pane — Unmatched Book Entries: posted receipts, payments, bank-GL journal lines and deposits — re-sorts by match quality for your selected line (exact-reference candidates first, then close dates, then amount-only), with a "Suggested Matches" count. Ninety percent of the time, the right answer is row one.
Stage, then apply
Selecting a line + a candidate stages the pair; keep going — several pairs can stage — then Apply Matches commits them all at once (all-or-nothing, so a half-applied batch can't exist). Each match stamps the line Manual, with your name and the timestamp: the audit answer to "who says these belong together?" is always you, on record.
Reading the two panes
Each pane is a working grid, not just a list. What the columns tell you:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| BSL # | The statement line's own number — the handle you'll see again on adjustment journals and audit trails. |
| Date / Description / Amount / Reference / Type | The bank's facts as imported: when, what the bank called it, how much (signed), the bank's reference, and the transaction type. |
| Days Old | How long the item has been waiting — the aging column that makes stale stragglers impossible to overlook. |
| Match Quality | On candidates, once a statement line is selected: Exact, Date Range or Amount Only — the same three grades the auto-match engine uses, so you can see why a candidate ranks where it does. |
| Match Type / Matched Document / Source | On matched lines: how the pair was made (Auto, Manual, Rule-Based, AI-Suggested, Adjustment), which document explains it, and what kind of document that is. |
Above the grids sit the working filters — deposits vs payments, unmatched vs matched vs all — and a search box for hunting a specific amount or reference. The book side draws from four candidate sources, all posted: cash receipts on this bank account (not grouped into a deposit, not reconciled elsewhere), cash disbursements, journal lines on the bank's GL account (a debit behaves as a deposit, a credit as a withdrawal), and bank deposits — each deposit offered as one unit while its member receipts stay out of the pool.
A July line, worked by hand
Meridian's July closed almost entirely on Auto Match — the references were clean — but its wire is the perfect specimen for the manual craft. Take the statement line −$10,000.00, reference WIRE-ACC-0702, and suppose the reference column had been lost in the export. Select the line: the book side re-sorts, and the $10,000 progress payment to Apex Construction rises to the top graded Amount Only — right amount, right direction, no reference to confirm it. The description says Apex, the payment says Apex, the dates agree: you stage the pair, Apply 1 Matches, and the line is explained — stamped Manual, with your name and the timestamp. Thirty seconds, fully audited. The same judgment call is exactly what the machine refused to make if a second $10,000 payment had been in the pool — ambiguity is reserved for humans.
Unmatching
The Unmatch row action (or Unmatch Selected for a batch) severs a pair cleanly: the line's stamps clear, the document's reconciliation links clear, both return to their queues, and the Difference recalculates. Two protections: a line already reconciled stays that way until you unmatch it deliberately, and once the reconciliation is Completed, matching is frozen — "Cannot edit a completed reconciliation. Reopen it first to make changes."
The rules that keep matches clean
Matching writes to both sides of the pair, so the guards are strict. Verbatim, with the way out:
| The message | What it means / what to do |
|---|---|
| "This statement line is already reconciled." | Someone (or Auto Match) got here first. If the existing match is wrong, unmatch it deliberately, then re-match. |
| "A statement line can match to only one source record. At most one of Cash Receipt, Cash Disbursement, Journal Entry Line, or Bank Deposit can be populated." | One bank movement, one explanation. Several receipts genuinely deposited together belong in a Bank Deposit — then the deposit is the one source. |
| "A reconciled statement line must have exactly one source record linked (Cash Receipt, Cash Disbursement, Journal Entry Line, or Bank Deposit)." | No line can be hand-waved to "done" — reconciled means explained by something specific. Match through the workspace and the stamps take care of themselves. |
| "Cannot edit a completed reconciliation. Reopen it first to make changes." | Matching and unmatching freeze once the reconciliation completes. Reopen it — a deliberate, recorded act — and the panes come back to life. |
| "Cash Receipt currency must match the Bank Account currency when matched to a Bank Statement Line." | A match asserts "same money," and money has a currency. The same wording protects payments and journal lines. |
| "A record cannot be linked to both a Bank Deposit and a Bank Statement Line. It can be reconciled through a deposit or directly, but not both." | One route per receipt: through its deposit group, or directly — never twice. |
The confirmations are just as explicit: "Items matched successfully." and "Successfully matched {0} items." on the way in; "Match removed successfully." and "Successfully unmatched {0} items." on the way out.
Matching a line in a different currency
When the receipt or payment is in one currency and the bank account is in another, the two amounts on your screen won't be equal number-for-number — a €1,000 receipt is not $1,000. To let you compare like with like, each receipt and payment carries a Bank Reconciliation Amount: its value converted into the bank account's currency (Amount × Exchange Rate). That converted figure is what the statement line is really being matched against, so a cross-currency pairing you make by hand lines up against the same dollars the bank credited.
Small rounding gaps between the converted value and the bank's figure are absorbed automatically by the account's Reconciliation Tolerance — the same tolerance the automatic passes use. You don't do anything different when matching by hand; the converted amount is filled in for you and shown read-only.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Matching on amount alone when two candidates share it | A coin-flip match poisons two months — this line wrongly explained, and the real counterpart left orphaned for someone else to puzzle over | Break the tie with dates, references, and the counterparty in the description — that's exactly why these lines wait for a human |
| Matching three receipts' statement line to just one of the three | The amounts differ, so it won't commit — and the "fix" people reach for (editing amounts) corrupts evidence | Group the receipts into a Bank Deposit mirroring the deposit slip, and match the deposit to the line |
| Waiting for a draft receipt to appear in the candidates | It never will — drafts aren't in the books, so they can't explain a bank movement | Post the document; it joins the pane immediately |
| Unmatching under a completed reconciliation "real quick" | Blocked ("Cannot edit a completed reconciliation…") — and if it weren't, the proven zero would silently stop being true | Reopen the reconciliation first; the reopening itself is part of the audit story |
| Treating an empty candidate list as a dead end | The month stalls on a line whose answer isn't a match at all | Empty means one of two things: post the missing document, or book the line as an adjustment — fees and interest were never going to have a match |
Where to go next
- AI Auto-Matching — run the machines first.
- Completing a Reconciliation — adjustments and the finish.
- Bank Statement Lines — what the stamps mean on the record.
Frequently asked questions
Dates and references break the tie (that's why auto-match refused to guess). If both genuinely fit, check each document's counterparty against the line's description — and improve your reference discipline so next month isn't a coin flip.
No, and rightly: a match asserts "same money." A cents difference is usually a fee netted by the bank — match nothing; book the difference via an adjustment, or correct the document if it's simply wrong.
Candidates are posted documents only — a draft isn't in the books yet, so it can't explain a bank movement. Post it first; it appears in the right pane immediately.
Nothing commits — applying staged matches is all-or-nothing, so a half-applied batch can't exist. Fix or remove the failing pair (the message tells you which guard it hit) and apply again.
They mirror the auto-match passes: Exact — same amount, same date, same reference or check number; Date Range — same amount within the account's match window; Amount Only — the amount and direction fit, nothing else confirms it. The grade tells you how much of your own judgment the match needs.
No — matching never posted anything, so unmatching never unposts anything. It clears the line's stamps and the document's reconciliation links; both return to their queues and the Difference recalculates. The documents themselves are untouched.
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