Reconciliation is where books quietly drift from reality. A payment that lands without being tied to the ledger doesn't disappear. It turns up next month as an unexplained balance. Ledgestra handles it in three deliberate steps: match, post, then apply.
1. Match with rules you control
Each bank statement line is compared against candidate transactions using a set of matching rules. Every rule checks one thing and carries a weight you set:
- Same amount, to the cent
- Date tolerance, counted in business days, so a payment booked on Friday still matches a line dated the following Tuesday
- Same counterparty name, same IBAN and same currency
- Reference contains the invoice number
- Same bank account, and BIC matching against a validated BIC or your own BIC list
- Custom field match on any field you choose
Rules can be scoped to a specific bank or country, because a French bank's statement references don't look like a Lebanese bank's. The weights add up to a match score, and you can tune how much each rule counts.
Above the threshold, the match is confirmed automatically. Below it, the line goes to an exceptions queue for a person to review. The engine never guesses: an uncertain match is shown as uncertain.
2. Post the cash movement to the GL
A confirmed match posts a journal entry between the bank account's own GL cash account and its clearing account. This is standard practice: the cash has moved, but the system doesn't yet claim to know what it's for. If a bank account is missing either GL account, nothing is posted and nothing is guessed.
3. Apply cash to the exact invoice
Cash application closes the loop. You pick the open customer or supplier invoice the payment settles, and Ledgestra posts from the clearing account to that invoice's receivable or payable account. Amounts must match exactly, and an invoice can't be applied twice. The receivable is closed out properly instead of being parked in a suspense account.
Why it matters
- A clean trial balance: the clearing account shows exactly what's still unapplied, nothing more.
- Honest aging: an invoice counts as paid only when cash has actually been applied to it.
- Audit-ready: each step creates its own journal entry, traceable back to the statement line and the invoice.