How matching works

Matching answers two questions: which receipt belongs to this payment, and which payments still have no receipt. The second question is the useful one. A payment with no receipt is what your accountant will ask about, and the app lists it so you can find the receipt before they ask.

The app links what it can on its own and leaves a choice to you only where two answers are equally good. A match is still a statement about your records, not a reconciliation you can rely on without checking.

What has to fit

A bank row and a receipt can be matched when all of these hold:

• The payment is money out. Money in is matched to sales invoices instead (see below).
• The receipt is read. Approved receipts and receipts still in Receipts To do both count. On Bank, a payment matched to a receipt that still needs a look shows Check the receipt next to Matched, and correcting the receipt works the match out again.
• The amounts agree, in one of four ways, best first:
  • the same currency and amount, to within two cents;
  • the original foreign amount on the statement. Holvi prints it as “Currency and amount: USD 10.46”; that line is read on import, from CSV, XLSX and PDF statements alike, and for statements imported before;
  • for a foreign receipt paid from a euro account with no original amount on the statement, the receipt’s ECB euro estimate within 4 % or one euro, whichever is larger (card schemes add 1 to 3 %);
  • a small tip: the charge is up to 20 % (at least two euros) more than the receipt, booked within 7 days.
• The dates are close. The payment is booked between 3 days before and 45 days after the receipt’s issue date.
• The names are alike. Card processor prefixes such as SumUp *, PTL*, VFI*, SP and PAYPAL *, words such as PENDING, and legal forms are taken off first. The seller and merchant then match when they read the same, when one contains the other (“Fakeco” and “FAKECO IRELAND”), when the first word that names the seller is shared (“FAKECO* WIDGET SUB”), or when enough words are shared (60 % by default). A vendor rule’s bank alias bridges any other gap.

A bank row that just says “Stripe” or “PayPal” says nothing about the seller behind it, so those names never match on their own. Add a bank alias if one seller always appears that way.

The window and the name threshold can be changed under Settings > Advanced.

How the best pair is picked

Every receipt and payment that fit are ranked: an exact amount before an estimate or a tip, an amount to the cent before one within two cents, a close name before a looser one, then the closest date, with a payment on or after the receipt’s date before one the same number of days before it. Pairs are linked best first. A monthly subscription with the same price every month goes to the right month this way.

When a receipt fits two different payments equally well, or a payment two different receipts, neither is linked. They are shown as Likely suggestions for you to pick. Two payments that read the same in every way (the same day, amount and merchant, in the same account) are interchangeable, so they do not count as a choice. An invoice and a receipt file of the same charge, with the same number, date and total, count once: the better document is matched and the other stays with it.

Matching runs again over every imported month after every import, reading, correction, approval and restore, so a receipt that arrives later is picked up straight away. If you change a matched receipt’s seller, date, currency or total, its automatic match is removed and worked out again. If you remove a match, the app never links that same pair again on its own; matching it yourself lifts that. Importing the same bank file twice changes nothing.

Payments that need no receipt

Not every payment is a purchase. Tax payments, loan repayments, salary and money you move to yourself have no receipt, and listing them as missing would hide the real gaps.

• Marked for you. After matching, payments no receipt fits are marked Not a purchase when they are clearly not one: money to your own name (as in Your business names) or marked as a self-transfer, payments to the tax authority, bank service fees, cash withdrawals, statutory pension insurance, card top-ups and food delivery (Uber Eats, Wolt, Foodora and the like, but not Uber rides or restaurants). A label next to Not a purchase says which rule it was. Then, once per import, the payments of that file that read like a bank transfer to a person go to Clef in one question of at most 40 payments; only a confident “not a purchase” is used. Needs a receipt turns one automatic mark back. The import banner’s Undo takes the whole import out again, with its automatic marks and matches, as long as you have not matched or marked any of its payments yourself. Once you have chosen either way, nothing marks that payment again. If a receipt turns up for a payment that was marked automatically, the receipt wins.
• Exemptions. Mark a payment Not a purchase yourself. It drops out of the missing list and the month’s missing-receipt file. You can undo it with Needs a receipt under the payment’s More.
• Own-account transfers. When you import statements from more than one of your accounts, money moved between them shows up twice: once leaving one account, once arriving in the other. Pairing the two sides, with a short reason, marks both as needing no receipt. The pair must be in different accounts, in the same currency, with equal and opposite amounts. See Pair an own-account transfer.

Bank sums up each month as payments out, matched, not a purchase and missing.

Sales invoices and money in

If you keep the sales invoices you send, money coming in is matched to them. The rule is stricter in one way: the amount fitting is not enough for an automatic match. The bank row’s reference must carry the invoice’s reference or number, or the payer’s name must be the client. An amount on its own is only a suggestion. An invoice paid somewhere your statements do not show (a card payout, cash, another bank) can be marked as paid outside, with a note.

What matching does not do

• It does not split or combine payments. One receipt is linked to at most one payment. A receipt paid in instalments, or one payment covering three receipts, needs your judgement and a note for your accountant.
• It does not handle refunds as such. A refund is money in; a credit note is flagged when read. Pair them up in your own notes.
• It does not see pending card transactions differently. If your bank exports pending rows, they are imported like booked ones; “PENDING” in a merchant name is ignored when names are compared.
• It does not decide what a payment was for. A match says “these two look like the same purchase”. Whether that purchase is deductible, and how it is booked, is your accountant’s call.

For the steps, see Match payments and receipts. For what is accepted in a bank file, see Bank CSV import.