Why are payments still showing on the match transactions screen?

When you have finished bank matching all of your uploaded transactions, the left-hand table of the Match Transactions screen will be empty. It's common for there to still be payments and bank deposits showing in the right-hand table, and typically this isn't anything to worry about.

Unreconciled payments and bank deposits that are shown in the right-hand table are not included in the count of unreconciled transactions, which just displays the number of bank transactions waiting to be reconciled.

Why are there still payments and bank deposits in the right-hand table of the match transactions screen?

Typically, the payments and bank deposits that are shown in the right-hand table relate to bank transactions that haven't been uploaded yet. For example, if you have just uploaded and reconciled your July bank transactions then you will have August dated transactions in the right-hand table, ready for next month when you upload your August bank statement.

If any of the payments or deposits in the right-hand table relate to a month you have already uploaded and reconciled in ExpensePlus, this doesn't necessarily mean there is an issue. For example, if you have made a payment by cheque then the payment will remain in the right-hand table until the cheque is cashed and it appears on your bank statement. Similarly, business card payments often leave the bank account 2-3 days after a purchase is made so the bank transactions may appear on the statement the month after.

In either of these scenarios, there is no need to try and update the payment date of transactions in the right-hand table on the match transactions screen as this will automatically happen when you do come to bank match these transactions.

When might there be an issue?

If you end up with transactions showing on the right-hand table that are older, or that you know you have already reconciled the bank transactions these payments relate to, then this may highlight an issue.

Here are the most common mistakes:

1. You've entered a direct debit or card payment transaction from the purchases screen in ExpensePlus (which is why the payment is showing in the right-hand table of the match transactions screen), but in a previous month you set ExpensePlus to remember this recurring transaction within the match transactions screen, so ExpensePlus has automatically created a purchase for you when you clicked the matched recurring transactions button, which is why this transaction remains unmatched in the right-hand table.

To remove the duplicate that has been created, on the match transactions screen click the 'edit' button to the right of this payment and select 'delete'.

We'd also recommend you either:

• stop entering recurring payments on the purchases screen in ExpensePlus (because this isn't needed), OR

• remove this entry from the memorised transactions to prevent ExpensePlus from auto-matching it (which then causes a duplicate).

  
  

2. When the payment was marked as paid on the payments screen in ExpensePlus, the incorrect bank account was selected

You can confirm whether this is the case by checking whether the un-matched bank transaction is showing within a different bank account. If it is, then on the match transactions screen, click the edit button to the right of this payment showing in the right-hand table of the match transactions screen, and update the bank account of the payment.

3. The transaction was wrongly entered as either a direct debit or business card purchase (instead of being entered as an expense claim / invoice to pay)

Both Direct Debit and business card purchases skip the payments screen in ExpensePlus (because payments are taken automatically for both so no payment is needed). If indeed a payment was actually needed and these purchases were wrongly entered, they will be showing in the right-hand table of the bank match screen, but without payment having been made (which is why a corresponding bank transaction has never appeared within the uploaded bank transactions).

You can confirm this is the case by:

• clicking on the payment in the right-hand table to confirm the purchase type, and
• clicking 'view receipt' within the receipts section of the purchase to check whether a payment was needed.

4. The purchase was entered correctly, but someone accidentally marked it as paid on the payment screen, without actually making the payment

You can confirm this by checking whether this payment ever left your bank account. If it didn't, click the 'edit' button to the right of the payment on the match transactions screen, then select 'mark as unpaid' (which will put the payment back on the payments screen for you).

5. The purchase is a direct debit or business card purchase that has been entered twice (i.e. two identical purchases were entered on the purchase screen)

This is highly unlikely to happen because ExpensePlus checks for duplicates when purchases are entered, so for this to have happened, someone must have overridden the warning message that appeared when entering the duplicate.

You can confirm whether this is the case by:

• clicking on the payment in the right-hand table to confirm the purchase type, and
• clicking on the 'search all purchases' option within the purchases screen to confirm that this is a duplicate.

To better understand the Bank Reconciliation module, please view the module overview video here.