Bank reconciliation

To reconcile is to link each line of your statement to its supporting document — an invoice, an expense report, a tax notice. This is what turns a raw bank flow into proven accounting. For this, Simon offers four strategies, from the most automatic to the most manual, and switches from one to the other according to what it finds.

Reconciliation comes into play as soon as statements are imported and documents available. There you validate the transaction ↔ document(s) match, partial payments, fees, roundings and exchange differences, postings without a document, and shareholder current account cases. An important detail: creating a reconciliation group counts as validation — there is no “pending approval” state on top of it.

flowchart TD
    A[Unreconciled transaction] --> B{Auto-match?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Automatic 1:1<br/>reconciliation]
    B -->|No| D{Existing document?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Direct<br/>reconciliation]
    D -->|No| F{Special case?}
    F -->|Yes| G[Categorization<br/>without document]
    F -->|No| H[Manual<br/>reconciliation]

1. Auto-match

Simon sweeps all unreconciled transactions and proposes obvious 1:1 matches. For each one, it looks for an exact amount (to within €0.01, in euros or in the original currency), identity evidence (third-party IBAN, E2E reference, rule alias, label tokens) and date proximity within a ten-day window.

Each proposal receives a confidence score between 0 and 1, built by accumulating signals:

Signal	Contribution
Exact EUR amount	+0.60 (base)
Third-party IBAN	+0.30
E2E reference	+0.20
Alias (rule)	+0.10
Date < 3 days	+0.10
Date 3 to 10 days	+0.05

2. Direct reconciliation

When the match is identified — by the agent or by you — it is posted directly. A transaction can reconcile with a single document (1:1), with several (1:N, for a grouped payment or a credit note + invoice pair), or via an assisted reconciliation that creates the group, adds the items and applies the adjustments (fees, roundings, exchange differences) all at once.

3. The cases without a document

Not all transactions have a supporting document in the classic sense. Simon handles them by direct posting:

Case	Treatment	Account
Salaries, social contributions, VAT, bank fees…	Direct categorization (64 categories available)	Variable
Repayment of the shareholder current account	Posting to the shareholder account	455
Document paid by the director (personal)	Routed through the shareholder account	455
Cash payment	Routed through the cash register	530
Link with an engagement (down payment, deposit…)	Attachment to the schedule	Variable
Lost document	Exceptional expense	678 → 471

4. Manual reconciliation

For truly composite situations, the agent builds the reconciliation item by item: it creates an empty group linked to the transaction, adds documents and adjustments to it, and combines items of different roles (payment, credit note, fee, rounding…) until it balances.

The roles of an item

In a group, each item plays a precise role — and only some require a document:

Role	Document required	Description
Payment	yes	Normal settlement of an invoice
Credit note	yes	Credit note
Down payment	yes	Anticipated partial payment
Bank fees	no	Commission, overdraft fees
Rounding	no	Rounding difference
Exchange difference	no	Conversion difference
Direct categorization	no	Posting without a supporting document

The group and its state

A reconciliation group materializes an active match. Its mere existence means it is validated: creating a group validates the reconciliation, deleting it cancels it, and a transaction can belong to only one group at a time.

When a group is created, Simon also generates the necessary technical entries: a clearing document (balancing OD via the suspense account 471) and, only if the group contains fees, roundings or exchange differences, an adjustment document (bank fees 6271, exchange gains/losses 766/666, roundings 758/658). These documents synchronize with each modification of the group and disappear if the group is cancelled.

The suggestions

Before reconciling, the agent can ask for leads. Per transaction, it looks for combinations of one to three documents whose amounts match; per document, it lists the candidate transactions. Suggestions are ranked by relevance: known rules, then same third party, exact amount, minimal number of documents, smallest difference.

The tolerances

Parameter	Value	Usage
Exact amount	± €0.01	Strict match
Small difference	± €0.50	Automatic rounding
Fee difference	± €1.00	Fee/rounding with adjustment
Date window	10 days	Temporal proximity
Label similarity	≥ 0.25	Match on tokens