Bank reconciliation: what automatic matching actually does, and doesn't
"Auto-matched" sounds like AI. It is closer to arithmetic: an exact amount, a five-day window, and exactly one candidate — or the line waits for you. Here is precisely what that means against a real statement.
The Fatouraty team
"Smart reconciliation" is a phrase used loosely across accounting software. What actually happens in Fatouraty is simpler than that word suggests — and more trustworthy for exactly that reason: you paste your bank statement, the system proposes matches based on amount and date alone, and you decide. No text is read, no pattern is learned, and nothing is guessed when two candidates look equally likely.
Import: pasting a CSV, not a live bank connection
You paste your statement as CSV into a text field, and the parser detects the delimiter in use — comma, semicolon, or tab — from the header row itself, and handles a quoted field containing that same delimiter or a thousands separator correctly. Column headers are read by case-insensitive partial match: date; a description column (also matched as narrative, details or memo); a separate, optional reference column; then either a single amount column or separate debit and credit columns. There is no file to upload — import is pasted text, not a live connection to any bank.
Dates are accepted year-first, or day-first — the shape the parser always assumes for a slash-separated date, matching the common convention across the region; export your statement from the bank in that order, not month-first. A date that is genuinely unreadable — a day or month outside any sensible range — is refused outright rather than entered with the wrong numbers, and it is not silently dropped: it is excluded from the import, and the count of excluded rows is shown alongside what was actually imported.
Matching: an exact amount, and a five-day window
Every imported line is matched against journal lines already posted to that same bank account — not directly against invoices or expenses, but against the entry a payment recorded on them produced. Exactly two conditions, nothing more:
| Field | Does matching use it? |
|---|---|
| Amount | Yes — exact match to the currency's smallest unit, no rounding margin |
| Date | Yes — within a 5-day window, either direction |
| Description or reference | No — not used in matching today |
| Bank account | Yes — the search is limited to that same account only |
And the auto-match rule is one explicit statement: an imported line is matched automatically only when it finds exactly one unambiguous candidate under the two conditions above. Zero candidates, or more than one, and the line is left for your review rather than guessed.
"Matched" is not "reconciled"
Auto-matching only moves a line to "matched", not straight to "reconciled" — confirming is a deliberate second step, so every match can be reviewed before it is locked in for good. And once a line is "reconciled", it cannot be re-pointed to a different entry directly — it must be explicitly un-reconciled first, so a confirmed reconciliation is never quietly replaced by mistake.
What happens to a line with no candidate
A line with no candidate stays visible as "unmatched" — it does not vanish, and it does not lock itself away. Where one or more candidates exist, the page lists them for a manual pick. In practice, the fix is to post the entry it belongs to — a payment against an invoice, a bank charge as an expense — at which point it becomes a fresh candidate the next time matching runs. Every match and unmatch is reversible in one click with no extra confirmation, and every change is recorded to an internal audit log with its reference and timing.
What matching does not do today
- No live bank connection. Import is pasted CSV text, not a live feed or a direct link to your account.
- One-to-one matching only. A single bank line matches a single journal line, structurally — no splitting a lump-sum deposit across several invoices, and no combining several lines into one entry.
- One currency per bank account, not per transaction. Different accounts can carry different currencies, but matching compares whole numbers directly with no currency conversion in the process.
- No automatic guard against importing the same statement twice. Pasting the same statement again adds a fresh row for every line in it; the practical safeguard is importing only the date range you haven't imported yet.
Getting the most out of it in practice
Reconcile weekly, not annually — an unmatched list of five lines is a minute's review; a list of five hundred becomes a project of its own. Export your statement from the bank day-first where possible, since that is the format the parser reads with total confidence and no ambiguity. And keep posting every bank-side transaction to a real entry as it happens — matching cannot suggest what hasn't been posted yet in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Does Fatouraty connect directly to my bank?
Not today. You import your statement by pasting CSV text, not through a live feed or a direct bank connection.
What counts as a "match"?
An exact amount to the currency's smallest unit, a date within five days either direction, and exactly one unambiguous candidate. Description or reference play no part in matching at all.
What if two candidates share the same amount and date?
The line is deliberately left "unmatched", with a dropdown listing every candidate for a manual pick. The system does not guess between two equally likely options.
Can one bank line match two invoices, or several lines combine into one entry?
Not today. Matching is strictly one-to-one — a single bank line to a single journal line only.
What's the difference between "matched" and "reconciled"?
Automatic or manual matching only links a line to an entry. Reconciling is a separate, explicit confirmation that locks that link in — and it cannot be swapped for a different match without being un-reconciled first.
What happens if I import the same statement twice?
A second copy of every line in it is added. There is no automatic duplicate guard today, so the practical safeguard is importing only the date range you have not already imported.