#Money in the bank

Your books and your bank rarely agree to the cent on any given day, and that's normal. Reconciliation is the routine that explains every difference so you can trust both numbers — and in Tamra it is also where most customer receipts and supplier payments get recorded, because the bank line is the truth and the booking follows it. It lives under Books → Reconciliation.

#Bank and cash accounts

Every bank account you reconcile is a bank account record with a name, the bank, a currency, and the ledger account behind it (created for you under the Default Bank Parent from Account Mapping). Cash is a bank account too — a till, petty cash — reconciled the same way against a cash count. Foreign-currency accounts keep their own currency; the books value them in base at the stored reference rate. Adding, archiving or deleting a bank account needs Account Mapping, since it decides where money is booked; changing a bank account's details tells the company's Super Admins.

A bank's opening balance is posted against Opening Balance Equity on its opening date. When the opening trial balance from Move to Tamra already holds that ledger account (it was imported before the bank was set up), only the rest is posted — nothing when they agree — so the balance is never in the books twice; the trial balance always leaves the default bank and cash accounts, and their headings, to this step. The ledger account behind a bank is made in the same step as the bank, so a refused save leaves nothing behind. Picking an existing one instead, it has to be an asset account that isn't already doing another job (receivables, stock, input VAT, supplier advances, goods received not billed, accumulated depreciation). A bank with nothing booked to it can be deleted (typing its name to confirm); one with history is archived instead.

These are the accounts money moves through. Every payment screen — New payment, Pay Bills, a bill's or an invoice's Record payment, advances, refunds, the phone — lists the bank and cash accounts registered here, by name, banks first, and picks one for you only when the choice is clear: the default bank in Account Mapping, or the only bank there is. The card gateway's clearing account isn't offered (card money is booked there by the payment service), and neither are headings or other ledger accounts. The server holds to the same rule: a payment through any other account is refused with … is not one of this company's bank or cash accounts. The bank and cash accounts set in Account Mapping count too, registered or not.

#The workbench

Pick a bank account at the top. The screen has two halves:

• Statement — the bank's lines for the current period, newest at the top, with the opening balance at the bottom and the closing balance above the lines. An add row sits at the top for keying lines in.
• Books — what the ledger has for the same account: entries that are matched, and three kinds that aren't — Outstanding (booked, not yet on a statement: a cheque you wrote), In transit (a deposit recorded, not yet landed), and Not booked (on the statement, unknown to the books: charges, interest).

Between them the difference. Reconciliation is done when it reads zero and every line is matched. The (i) link How does bank reconciliation work? explains the idea in place.

#Getting the statement in

Import or key in a statement: import a CSV from your bank (date, description, reference, amount — signed, or separate in/out columns; the importer maps them), or type lines into the add row: date, description, reference or cheque number, and the amount as money in or money out. Press Enter to save the line. A saved line can be edited (date, description, reference, amount) or deleted while unmatched.

Statements are periods: a period has an opening balance (the previous closing), its lines, and a closing balance. Lines dated inside a closed period are refused; a line dated after the last close starts the next period automatically.

A statement has to add up: opening balance + its lines = closing balance. While you import, Tamra shows the sum as you go — Opening 36,307.00 + 3 lines +5,837.50 = 42,144.50 — and says so if the closing balance you entered doesn't agree, because a missing or mistyped line is far easier to find now than at the month end. Leave the closing balance empty and it is worked out from the lines. Every line must be dated inside the statement's period (the period fills itself from the lines' dates when you leave it empty).

The same file twice is safe. A line that is already on the account — same date, amount, description and reference — is left out, as many times as it is already there, so an overlapping download adds only what is new while two genuine identical charges on one day both come in. After an import Tamra says what happened: 12 lines imported · 5 matched automatically · 3 already on the account were left out. Lines match automatically to an entry on this account for the same amount (in the account's own currency) within five days.

#Matching a line

Every unmatched line has a Reconcile button, showing a count when Tamra has found likely matches. Press it and the line opens with candidates:

• money in → the customer's open invoices (and advance invoices), with the customer guessed from the description;
• money out → the vendor's open bills, unpaid expense claims, and, for anything else, a ledger account.

Pick one and Tamra does two jobs at once: it records the payment (marking the invoice or bill part- or fully paid and clearing receivables or payables) and matches the line. You don't have to apply the whole amount to one document: pay part of a large invoice, or come back and apply the same deposit across several until the line's Remaining is zero. A 2 % tolerance absorbs bank fees on the difference. How does applying a payment work? on the screen walks through the example. What an invoice is owed is what is really left on it — credit notes applied (and on a bill, debit notes) come off. A line dated before the invoice or bill can't pay it, since a payment is never dated before its document: take it as an advance (New advance from [customer], or to [vendor]) and apply it once the document is there.

A line can only be matched to a posted entry on this account's own ledger account, going the same way (money in with money in), that hasn't been reversed — and never for more than the entry is: one receipt can be split across two bank lines, but the two parts can't add up to more than the receipt. The other way round works too: one bank line can clear several entries — a batch debit paying three bills, a deposit slip with five cheques, a transfer and its fee. Reconcile suggests entries smaller than the line, marked part of this line; each takes what it covers (Matched 1,200.00 — 800.00 left) until Remaining is zero. Two people (or a double click) can't match the same line twice: each change waits for the one before it.

#Wrong direction

Keyed a receipt as a payment? Flip to money in / money out on the line corrects the sign without re-entering it.

#Bank charges, interest, and other one-offs

For a line that is not a customer or vendor at all, choose a ledger account (bank charges, interest income, a loan) — Tamra writes the journal entry for you and matches the line. On money out, VAT included splits the amount at the rate you pick: 105.00 of card fees at 5 % is 100.00 to the fees account and 5.00 to input VAT (a share you can't recover stays a cost), and the VAT return counts it as a purchase, under Bank line. ⋯ → Add journal entry does the same with full control over the lines. On a line that is already part-matched, the entry is for what is left on it. A bank or cash account can't be the other side — money between your own accounts is a transfer.

#Transfers between your own accounts

A transfer moves your money from one account to another — not income, not an expense. On the line, ⋯ → Transfer between accounts and name the other account: on a money-out line this account sends, on a money-in line it receives, and the transfer is posted and the line matched in one step. The line on the other account's statement matches to the same transfer: Match Existing Transfer lists the transfers going that way for that amount that aren't matched on that side yet. Same currency: the amounts agree and there's nothing more to it. Different currencies: enter what actually arrived (or left) in the other currency — the actual rate is never exactly the books' reference rate, and the small gap posts automatically as FX gain or loss — How do transfers — and FX — work? has the worked example. A transfer matched to a bank line can't be voided; unmatch it first.

#Unmatching

Unmatch takes the line back to unmatched and undoes only what the line itself created — the payment it recorded against an invoice or bill, the entry it wrote, the advance, the transfer. Something recorded elsewhere first (a receipt entered in Payments, say) stays exactly as it is; only the link goes.

While the date of what it created is in open books it is removed, and the invoice, bill or expense claim goes back to what it was owed — exactly as Void on the payment would leave it, to the fils (rounding included), and a bill archived after it was paid comes back into the list. When the books are locked for that date (the Books Lock Date in the company's settings), nothing in the locked period is touched: the payment is marked cancelled and a reversing entry is posted on the first open day, so the books still tell the whole story. Tamra says which it did — Statement line unmatched. Payment PAY-0231 removed (INV-0412 reopened). or … Payment PAY-0231 reversed by JE-0412 (INV-0412 reopened). A supplier advance already applied to bills must be taken off them first (Remove under it on the bill's Payments tab); one side of a transfer whose other side is matched must be unmatched there first.

#Foreign-currency accounts

On a USD account, matching an invoice in AED shows the invoice's amount converted to the bank's currency at the rate for the date, so what you accept is what the bank shows; the difference posts as FX gain or loss. If no rate exists for that date Tamra refuses rather than guess — add the rate first. An entry on a foreign account dated before its currency's first rate on file no longer stops the bank cards and the workbench from opening; when it has no amount in the account's currency, the card counts it as nothing until a rate for its date is added.

#Advances from the statement

A customer's deposit before any invoice: New advance from [customer] on the line creates the advance invoice, records the receipt and matches — see Invoices in depth. A deposit you paid a supplier: New advance to [vendor].

#Rules

Recurring lines with recognisable descriptions — bank charges, a subscription, salary transfers — can be matched by rules: a pattern in the description and the account or partner to book it to. Apply rules to unmatched lines runs them over the current period.

#Closing a period

When the difference is zero and nothing is unmatched, Close Period. The dialog shows the reconciliation as Tamra works it out from the statement lines and the books — nothing in it is typed in, and it is exactly what is saved with the period:

A statement line matched only in part counts in those rows for what is still unmatched on it, and the summary counts it as open until it is fully matched — the same way the close check sees it.

The two adjusted figures agree when everything is explained, and the difference is zero. The period can't close while a line in it isn't fully matched, while there is a difference, or while the bank's own closing balance doesn't agree with its lines (a line missing, doubled or mistyped). Close anyway, with a note overrides that for a genuine edge case — the note saying why is required and saved with the period. (It used to be called Force close.)

The opening balance — what the bank held before its first statement — and anything dated before the first statement count as already on the statement, so a fully matched first month closes at zero. Exchange revaluation entries are the books' own and are left out of matching. Editing or deleting one line moves the statement's closing balance by that line's change only, and clearing the unmatched lines takes their amounts off it.

Closing freezes the period: its lines can't be added, edited, deleted, matched or unmatched, and the payments and entries matched to them can't be deleted elsewhere either — so the agreement you reached stays put. It's the audit checkpoint.

Entries dated in a closed month can still be posted from other screens (a back-dated receipt, a transfer); the Books Lock Date is what stops that. When the book balance of the last closed month has changed since it was closed, the workbench says so — The book balance at 30 Sep was 600.00 when the month was closed and is 6,130.00 now — so you can reopen it and look. The opening balance can't be changed once a month is closed.

Reopen undoes a close, requires a reason, and is logged; reopen the latest closed period first, and close a reopened period again as itself before closing a later one. Start next statement opens the following period with the closing balance carried over as its opening. Reconciliation history lists every closed period for the account with its balances and who closed it.

#Payments register

Books → Payments is every payment in the company regardless of how it was recorded — from an invoice, a bill, Pay Bills, reconciliation, POS — with direction, method (bank transfer, cash, cheque, card, online, other), partner, account (the bank's name, or the ledger account's code and name), amount, base amount and rate, status (draft, confirmed, cancelled), and whether it's reconciled. Open one for its allocations and journal entry; Voucher prints the receipt or payment voucher; Void payment removes the payment and its journal entry and reopens whatever it settled (to keep a record of the money coming back, record a refund instead): an invoice goes back to Partial or Sent, a bill to Partial or Posted, and a refunded credit or debit note gets its credit back. An advance already applied to invoices or bills can't be voided: take it off them first with Remove on their Payments tab. A card payment from a payment link is voided like any other. On a document in another currency paid in parts, voiding a payment in the middle leaves no fils behind once the rest is paid. Amounts show in each currency's decimals (three for dinars). Export selected gives you the rows for the auditor.

#Cash flow

Books → Cash Flow shows money in and out by period — operating, investing and financing where you've classified accounts — built from the same payments and bank entries, so it agrees with the bank by construction.

#Common questions

The bank shows a deposit I can't find an invoice for. Match it to the customer as an on-account payment (it waits on their account for allocation), or as an advance if that's what it is. Never leave it unmatched to make the difference vanish.

A cheque we wrote hasn't cleared for weeks. It stays Outstanding in the Books panel across periods until the bank line arrives. That's correct; the difference explains it.

We have two years of unreconciled history. Start from a date you can agree with the bank: enter that day's balance as the opening balance, reconcile forward from there, and leave history as it is.

Can two people reconcile the same account? Yes. Each change to a line waits for the one before it, so the same line is never matched twice, two lines can't overpay one invoice, and the same file imported twice at the same moment comes in once.

Petty cash? A cash account, reconciled against the count; expense claims paid from it match here too.

#If something goes wrong

• Reconcile shows no suggestions → the partner isn't recognised from the description; search the invoice or bill by number in the counterpart box.
• The difference isn't zero and everything is matched → an opening balance is wrong (the previous period's closing) or a line was matched to the wrong amount; check Reconciliation history and the last closed period's closing balance.
• A line can't be edited → its period is closed; reopen with a reason, fix, close again.
• "Missing rate" on a foreign-currency match → Settings → Exchange Rates for that date.
• A transfer shows on one account only → the other account's statement line isn't entered yet; when it is, match it to the same transfer.
• "The statement doesn't add up" → opening + lines doesn't reach the closing balance you entered: a line is missing or mistyped, or a balance is. Fix it, or clear the closing balance to have it worked out.
• "Every line in this file is already on the account" → the file was imported before; nothing was added.
• Deleting a payment says it is matched to a bank line in a closed reconciliation period → reopen that period first (with a reason), then delete, then close it again.
• Unmatch is refused for an advance → it has been applied to bills or used on an invoice; take it off those first with Remove on their Payments tab.
• Reconcile refuses: "a payment can't be dated before its invoice" (or bill) → the money moved before the document's date. Use New advance from [customer] (or to [vendor]) on the line, then apply the advance to the document.