Tutorial 7 of 7
Reconcile bank rows with subscriptions and bills
Intermediate 6 min
Find possible duplicates and transfers between your accounts, confirm which payment belongs to which subscription or bill, and split a bank row into two categories.
After an import your bank rows are categorised, but some questions remain: did the bank list a payment twice, is a debit just money moved to your savings account, and which row was actually the Netflix payment? The Reconciliation card on the Transactions desk answers these questions — with suggestions you confirm, never with automatic changes.
1. Open the card
Open Transactions (Alt+3) and scroll below the table. The card Reconciliation starts with four numbers:
- Possible duplicates — rows with the same date, amount, account and description.
- Possible transfers — opposite amounts on the same day in two of your accounts (only rows with an account name count).
- Rows to review — rows with a duplicate or transfer flag or a suggested match that you have not confirmed yet.
- Confirmed matches — rows you linked to a subscription or bill.
Try it with the example City couple, renting: its card payments for Netflix, Spotify Family and Audible appear under Rows to review.
2. Review one row
Transaction to review lists the rows in three groups: To review first, then Confirmed matches, then Other transactions (newest first). Pick a row; the card explains what it found:
- Possible duplicate — another row is identical. If your bank listed the payment twice, delete one of them in the table above (the bin button of the row).
- Possible transfer — a matching opposite row belongs to another account. Transfers between your own accounts are not spending; give both rows the same budget category or remove them from the budget if you track savings separately.
3. Confirm a match
Suggested subscription or bill lists what the payment could be:
- a subscription whose price in your household currency is exactly the amount and whose name appears in the bank description, or
- a bill period (from the Bills desk) whose total is exactly the amount and whose meter name appears in the description — shown with the end date of the period.
If there is exactly one suggestion it is preselected. Press Confirm match; the card now says Confirmed match: subscription Netflix. and the row moves to Confirmed matches. Clear match removes the link again. Both are undoable with Ctrl+Z.
Suggestions are hints, not proof: a price change, a partial payment or a foreign-currency charge does not produce a suggestion, and two subscriptions with the same price and similar names could both be offered. If you rename or delete a subscription or bill later, review the confirmed rows again — a link to a deleted item says so.
4. Split a row into two categories
One supermarket receipt can contain groceries and household goods. Select the row and press Split transaction… (you need at least two budget categories):
- Enter the Amount of the first row with the same sign as the original — for a debit of −€80.00, for example −50.
- Choose the Category of the first row and the Category of the second row.
- The line below shows both amounts, here −€50.00 and −€30.00. Press Split.
Ledgerly replaces the row with two rows that keep the date, description and account; their amounts always add up to the original exactly. A confirmed match is cleared, because it belonged to the whole payment.
5. Use the result
Export → Transactions (CSV) now has a column matched with the name (and period) of the confirmed subscription or bill. Confirmed links are part of the household project — autosave, project files, share links and Google Drive keep them.
Ready to try it?