Importing and Reconciling Bank Statements
Bank account statements can be imported by file or - if supported by the bank - they can be imported directly from the bank using direct communication.
Upon import, the bank's file format is converted, after which all information is automatically created in the bank account reconciliation.
When importing the bank account statement, Statement Intelligence will perform automatic reconciliation by matching the account statement lines with bank account ledger entries, preparing accounts receivable for matching, or creating matching proposals.
To import a bank statement
- Use the
icon and search for Bank Account Reconciliations, then select the related link. This opens the list of bank account reconciliations. - Open the bank account reconciliation for which you want to import account statement lines or create a new bank account reconciliation by selecting New in the action bar. Statement Intelligence will automatically be activated for the reconciliation if the bank account is set up to use Payment Management.
- On the bank account reconciliation, navigate to the action bar and select Bank > Import and Match. It will now start reconciling, finding customer ledger entries, and vendor ledger entries, and looking for all data that can be matched.
- If the bank account is set up to use direct communication, available bank account files will automatically be imported into the journal directly from the bank. If, on the other hand, the bank account is not set up for direct communication, you must manually select the file to be imported into the journal.
During import, the account statement will be processed for reconciliation, after which you can use Status on the account statement lines to get an overview of the reconciliation. Possible statuses are:
- Ok - a direct match is found.
- Unsolved - no direct match found, but if the No. of Reconciliation Suggestions column contains a number, possible matches are suggested.
- Awaiting Cash Receipt Jnl/General Jnl/Payment Jnl - no direct match found. Bank statement lines with reconciliation suggestions based on open customer, vendor, or employee payments.
If automatic matching has not been possible, Statement Intelligence will, in most cases, be able to generate matching suggestions.
For more information on how to manage open payments , see the Managing open payments from the bank account reconciliation article.
To import bank statements automatically
When new bank statements are available in the bank to be imported to Business Central with direct bank communication, you automatically import these to the bank account reconciliation
To import bank statements automatically:
- On the bank account card, on the action bar, select Actions > Enable Account Statement Job Queue. It will now automatically create a job queue for the automatic download of bank statements.
Automatic reconciliation by Statement Intelligence
The following procedure describes how Statement Intelligence handles the imported statement lines. Note that this is all happening during import.
Statement Intelligence will search for bank account ledger entries that match the bank statement lines based on the fields Transaction ID or Sender Reference. For all payments processed by Payment Management, the field Transaction ID will be filled in with a unique payment reference ID, which is generated automatically in the payment journal. The transaction ID will be used to find the corresponding bank ledger entry, which will then be marked for reconciliation. If the bank does not support transaction ID in the bank account statement, then Statement Intelligence will search for information in the sender reference that can be used for reconciliation. The field Sender Reference allows a custom setup specified on the bank account. For further details on sender reference, see Set up bank accounts for Statement Intelligence.
Statement Intelligence subsequently attempts to find closed payment receipt ledger entries that match the information on the account statement line. A match will be based on the customer payment ID, document no., payment reference, amount, and date.
For example, if you have set up customer statements to include a payment reference and the payment reference appears in the description or among the information received from the bank, Statement Intelligence identifies the payment reference and creates a reconciliation suggestion, including all the related entries. For more information, see Set up Customer Statements.If no unique match is found, Statement Intelligence will search for bank account ledger entries using only the amount and date as a search key. If any potential match is found, a reconciliation suggestion will be created, from which you must manually validate if the match is correct. For more information, see Reconciling bank statement lines manually.
If a bank account ledger entry is still not identified for reconciliation, the open customer entries will be examined using the customer number, payment ID, and document no. as search parameters. This is done to find open customer entries that have been paid without the payment being registered in Business Central. If there are open customer entries in the system that constitute a match according to the search keys, Statement Intelligence creates a reconciliation suggestion for the identified payments in the payment receipt journal, ready to post. After posting the open customer entries, the payments will thus be registered in Business Central, and the associated bank account ledger entries can be applied to the bank account statement line. For more information, see managing open payments from the bank account reconciliation.
Eventually, all non-reconciled account statement lines will be reviewed to see if a match can be found based on the reconciliation rules defined in the bank account. If a match is based on such a rule, reconciliation suggestions are created for payments and cash receipts in the ledger journal. The corresponding payment lines will be created when the ledger journal is posted. The associated bank account ledger entries will be applied to the related bank account statement lines.
The remaining bank account statement lines that Statement Intelligence cannot automatically match must be handled manually using the function Manual Match. For more information about manual matching, see Manually match bank statement lines.