Guide · chapter 3
Stop hoping
the numbers
are right.
Reconciliation is the half hour a month where your records and your bank's are made to agree, line by line, until the difference between them is zero. It is the only thing that turns a budget from a well-kept guess into a statement of fact.
Why bother
Because a budget you cannot check is a budget you will quietly stop believing.
Every manual system drifts: a forgotten coffee, a subscription that renewed, a transaction typed as $48 instead of $84. None of them announce themselves. Reconciliation finds all three in the same pass, and tells you the exact size of what is still missing.
UltimateStatement import and reconciliation are Ultimate features. Everything in chapters one and two works without them.
It finds what you forgot
Statement lines with no counterpart in the app are the things you meant to log and did not. One tap turns each into a real transaction, in the right envelope.
It proves the balance
The last screen compares your balance with the statement’s. Zero difference is not a feeling — it means every line is accounted for.
It does not touch your bank
You download the statement; the app reads the file. There is no connection, no credential and no aggregator anywhere in this flow.
End to end
Seven steps, most of which happen without you.
Thirty-eight of the forty-two lines below match themselves. The work — the part worth your attention — is the four that did not.
Plays on its own — or pause it and step through with the arrows at your own pace.
Accepted: OFX, QFX, QBO, CSV and QIF. Nearly every bank exports at least one, usually under “Download activity”.
1. Download the statement from your bank You fetch it; the app holds no bank login. The app opens the issuer’s site if you saved the address when you created the account.
Saved as “Capital One export”. Next month is one tap.
2. CSV gets asked a few questions OFX and QIF describe themselves. CSV does not, so you map the columns once per account and the mapping is saved for every future import.
Lines already reconciled in an earlier session are skipped, so an overlapping re-import cannot book anything twice. Pending, un-posted lines are never auto-matched — they change.
3. Matching runs Amounts must agree to the cent. Same day and a similar description is an exact match; within two days is a fuzzy one. Anything at 85% confidence or better is accepted for you, and the rest is handed over for a human decision.
4. Agreed — nothing to do Both sides saw the same thing. These are ticked already; you are skimming for the one that is wrong, not confirming thirty-eight that are right.
5. On the statement, not in the app Things you forgot to log, plus interest and fees, which no one ever logs. One tap creates each one — and a rule can pre-fill the envelope so next month it is already chosen.
6. In the app, not on the statement Usually the newest purchases, which have not posted yet — leave them, they will match next month. A line that is still here two statements later is a duplicate or a typo.
Reconciled transactions are stamped and excluded from later imports. That stamp is what makes a re-import safe.
7. Finish, and let the balances argue The last screen compares your balance with the statement’s. If they agree, the month is provably right. If they do not, the difference is the size of what is still missing — and that number is the whole point of reconciling.
Step 1 of 7
How matching decides
Exact to the cent, then generous about the date.
Banks post things days after they happen and rename them on the way through, so the amount is the only field that can be trusted absolutely. Everything else is scored.
- Amounts must agree exactly — to the cent, never “about right”
- Same day plus a recognisable description is an exact match
- Within two days is a fuzzy match, and says so
- Being linked to the account you are reconciling raises confidence
- At 85% and above it is accepted for you; below that, you decide
- Un-posted “pending” lines are never auto-matched — they still change
The last row is not a bug. A cent of difference is a different transaction until you say otherwise — and you can, by linking the two by hand.
The three piles
Everything lands in one of three places.
The review screen is not a list of forty-two things to check. It is three questions, and two of them usually have no answers at all.
Matched
Both sides saw the same thing. Already ticked. You are skimming these for the one that is wrong, not confirming the thirty-eight that are right.
Unmatched
On the statement, not in the app — what you forgot, plus interest and fees, which nobody logs. One tap creates each one in the envelope a rule suggests.
In the app only
You recorded it; the bank has not posted it yet. Usually the last few days of the month. Leave them — they match next time. One that is still here two statements later is a duplicate or a typo.
Doing it monthly
The second month takes ten minutes.
Almost everything that made the first pass slow is remembered afterwards, on purpose.
- A CSV column mapping is saved per account and reused — you map a bank once, ever
- Rules learn a payee: “AMZN” always means Household, filled in before you look
- Interest and fee lines on a card are recognised and categorised without a rule
- Reconciled transactions are stamped, and skipped by every later import
- A statement that overlaps last month’s cannot book anything twice
→ Householdactive
→ Fuelactive
→ Subscriptionsactive
Three kinds of pattern — starts with, contains, is exactly — because bank descriptions are inconsistent in all three directions.
Reconciliation questions.
Which file formats work?
OFX, QFX and QBO, which describe themselves and need no setup, plus CSV and QIF. Nearly every bank offers at least one, usually behind a “download activity” or “export” link. QBO is OFX underneath, so it goes down the same path.
My bank only gives me CSV.
Then you map its columns once — which one is the date, what format it is in, which one is the amount, which one is the description — and that mapping is saved against the account under a name you choose. Every future import from that bank skips the step entirely.
I imported the same statement twice.
Nothing happens, deliberately. Lines consumed by a completed session are recognised and skipped, so an overlapping re-import cannot double-book. If duplicates predate that — entered by hand and then imported — the next chapter shows how to spot them.
What if the difference is not zero?
Then you have found something, which is the point. The difference is the exact size of what is missing: an unrecorded transaction, a typo in an amount, or a balance that was wrong when you first entered the account. Reconciling is what makes that number visible instead of leaving it to accumulate silently.
Do I have to finish in one sitting?
No. A session stays in progress until you complete or abandon it, and abandoning changes nothing — no transaction is stamped and nothing is created unless you completed the session.
Does completing it change my balance?
Only if you ask it to. The last screen offers to set the account balance to the statement’s, which is usually what you want once the difference is zero. Decline it and the matching still stands.
A month you can prove.
Import the statement, judge the handful it could not, and be finished before the kettle boils.
Never Summer Mountains · mark byzewski, CC BY 2.0
