What are bank rules

You can use bank rules to automatically process transactions imported from your bank feeds or from a bank statement.

If you import similar transactions every month, such as direct debits, you can set up rules to automatically set the type of transaction, ledger account and customer or supplier.

Bank rules can help you save time, reduce the chance of errors, and automate some of the work needed for your incoming transactions. 

Your business may have recurring or frequent transactions coming in from a bank feed or bank statement. For example, monthly payment of utility bills, rent, or deposit interest. With bank rules, you can automatically create these transactions instead of entering them manually.

How they work

When you create bank rules, you set the transaction type and what conditions apply to it.

First, choose how to identify the transaction coming from your bank. This could be a reference number, a date, an amount or a combination of things. For example, the reference field for your electricity bill, might have your account number each time.

Next choose the transaction you want to create in Accounting, and specify the category and VAT rate where applicable. For your electricity bill, you might set up a payment for the 7200 Electricity category, with the Lower VAT rate.

After creating rules, prioritise them so that we apply them in order. Only one rule is applied per transaction, so it's important to get the order right.

Once you’ve set up bank rules, they will be instantly applied to your next batch of incoming transactions.

When a transaction matches a rule

When a transaction matches a rule, a suggestion will be displayed, in your incoming transactions feed, asking for you to confirm the match. All you need to do is review the details and confirm that it's correct to create the transaction. If it's incorrect, you can fix it and then update your rules to catch it next time.

When you create, edit, or delete a rule, the change is applied to your next batch of incoming transactions. You can also apply your changes to existing transactions.

Create bank rules