Imported Transactions: The Bank Tab Workflow

BeeKeeper connects to your bank account and automatically imports transactions so you don’t have to enter them by hand. The Bank Tab is where you review those imported transactions and turn them into proper accounting entries. This is one of the most important parts of your job as treasurer.

The Bank Tab

The Bank Tab lives on each bank account in your Chart of Accounts. It shows all transactions imported from your connected bank that still need your attention.

How to access it:

Go to your organization’s Chart of Accounts.
Click on a bank account (e.g., “Checking Account”).
Click the Bank tab.

You will see a list of imported transactions pulled from your bank, sorted by date. Each transaction shows the date, description (payee), amount, and its current status. Transactions that BeeKeeper has already matched to an account or vendor will show those suggestions for your review.

Understanding Transaction Status

Every imported transaction has a status that tells you where it is in the review process:

Pending – The transaction was just imported and has not been reviewed yet. It may have an auto-suggested category from AI or a matching rule, but you haven’t confirmed anything.
Matched – BeeKeeper (or you) has identified which expense or income account this transaction belongs to, and possibly which vendor. It is ready to be accepted.
Journaled – You have accepted the transaction and BeeKeeper created a journal entry for it. This transaction is now part of your official books.
Ignored – You chose to skip this transaction. It won’t become a journal entry. You can always come back and un-ignore it later.

Your goal is to move every transaction from Pending to either Journaled or Ignored.

Reviewing Transactions

The review workflow is straightforward. For each imported transaction, you decide what to do with it:

Open the Bank Tab on your bank account.
Look at the list of pending transactions.
For each transaction, check the suggested account and vendor. BeeKeeper often pre-fills these using rules or AI.
If the suggestion looks correct, accept the transaction.
If the suggestion is wrong, categorize it with the correct account and vendor, then accept it.
If you don’t recognize the transaction or it doesn’t belong in your books, ignore it.
If the transaction is a transfer between two of your bank accounts (e.g., moving money from checking to savings), handle it as a transfer.

Work through transactions from oldest to newest. This keeps your books in chronological order.

Accepting Transactions

When you accept a transaction, BeeKeeper creates a journal entry in your books. This is the core action of the Bank Tab.

To accept a single transaction:

Find the transaction in the Bank Tab.
Verify that the account (expense or income category) is correct.
Verify that the vendor is correct (if applicable).
Click Accept.
BeeKeeper creates a journal entry that debits and credits the appropriate accounts.

What happens behind the scenes:

A journal entry is created with the transaction date, amount, and description.
The bank account is credited or debited (depending on whether money came in or went out).
The matched expense or income account gets the offsetting entry.
The vendor, if set, is recorded on the journal entry.
The imported transaction status changes to Journaled.

Once accepted, the transaction appears in your account ledger and is included in all financial reports (P&L, Balance Sheet, etc.).

Categorizing Transactions

Sometimes BeeKeeper’s auto-suggestion is wrong, or a transaction has no suggestion at all. You can manually set the account and vendor before accepting.

To categorize a transaction:

Find the transaction in the Bank Tab.
Click on the transaction to expand it or open the categorization form.
Select the correct account from the dropdown (e.g., “Office Supplies”, “Fundraiser Revenue”).
Optionally select a vendor (e.g., “Staples”, “Amazon”).
Click Categorize (or Save).

The transaction is now marked as Matched with your chosen account and vendor. You can accept it right away or come back to it later.

Payee sibling categorization: When you categorize a transaction, BeeKeeper looks for other pending transactions with a similar payee name. If it finds any, it automatically suggests the same account and vendor for those transactions too. For example, if you categorize one “AMAZON.COM” transaction as Office Supplies, other Amazon transactions will pick up the same suggestion. You still review and accept each one individually.

Handling Transfers

Transfers happen when money moves between two of your bank accounts – for example, transferring funds from checking to savings. These show up as two separate imported transactions: a withdrawal on one account and a deposit on the other.

BeeKeeper automatically detects potential transfers by looking for matching amounts on different accounts within a 7-day window.

To accept a transfer:

Find a transaction that BeeKeeper has flagged as a potential transfer. It will show a suggested matching transaction on another account.
Verify that the two transactions are truly the same transfer (check dates and amounts).
Click Accept Transfer.
BeeKeeper creates a single journal entry that links both accounts, recording the money moving from one to the other.

Why transfers are handled differently:

A transfer is not income or an expense. It is just money moving between your own accounts.
If you accepted each side separately as a regular transaction, you would double-count the money.
The transfer action ensures only one journal entry is created for the pair.

If BeeKeeper doesn’t detect the transfer automatically:

The amounts may not match exactly (e.g., a bank fee was applied).
The dates may be more than 7 days apart.
In these cases, you may need to accept one side as a regular transaction and manually create a journal entry for the transfer.

Matching to Existing Entries

Sometimes you have already recorded a journal entry by hand, and then the same transaction shows up from your bank import. Instead of creating a duplicate entry, you can match the imported transaction to the existing journal entry.

When to use Match:

You wrote a check and already entered it as a journal entry, then the check cleared and appeared in your bank feed.
You recorded a deposit manually before the bank import pulled it in.
A transaction was entered by another treasurer before the bank connection was set up.

To match a transaction:

Find the imported transaction in the Bank Tab.
Click Match.
BeeKeeper shows a list of existing journal entries that could be a match (based on amount and date).
Select the correct journal entry.
Confirm the match.

The imported transaction is linked to the existing journal entry. No new entry is created. The transaction status changes to Journaled.

Bulk Accept

If you have many transactions that are already matched to the correct accounts, you can accept them all at once instead of clicking Accept on each one individually.

To use Bulk Accept:

Open the Bank Tab.
Review the list of matched transactions. Make sure the suggested accounts and vendors look correct.
Click Bulk Accept (or Accept All).
BeeKeeper creates journal entries for all matched transactions at once.

What Bulk Accept skips:

Potential transfers – Transactions that look like they might be transfers between your accounts are skipped. BeeKeeper does this to prevent you from accidentally creating regular journal entries for transfers. Review these individually using the transfer workflow.
Pending transactions without a match – Only transactions with a suggested account are included.

After Bulk Accept runs, check the Bank Tab for any remaining transactions that were skipped. Handle transfers and unmatched items individually.

Merging Duplicates

Occasionally the same transaction gets imported twice. This can happen if your bank connection refreshes overlapping date ranges. BeeKeeper lets you merge duplicates into a single transaction.

To merge duplicate transactions:

Identify two (or more) imported transactions that represent the same real-world transaction. They will typically have the same date, amount, and description.
Select the duplicate transactions.
Click Merge.
BeeKeeper combines them into one imported transaction, keeping the best available data from each.

Merging only affects imported transactions that have not yet been accepted. Once a transaction is journaled, it cannot be merged.

Auto-Matching

BeeKeeper uses two systems to automatically suggest accounts and vendors for your imported transactions. This saves you significant time, especially for recurring transactions.

Transaction Rules

Rules are text-based patterns that you create. When a transaction description matches the pattern, BeeKeeper automatically assigns the account and vendor.

How rules work:

Go to Settings > Transaction Rules (or create a rule from the Bank Tab).
Define a text pattern to match against (e.g., “AMAZON” or “COSTCO WHSE”).
Set the account to assign (e.g., “Office Supplies”).
Optionally set a vendor (e.g., “Amazon”).
Save the rule.

From now on, any imported transaction whose description contains that pattern will automatically be matched to the specified account and vendor. Rules are checked first, before AI categorization.

Tips for rules:

Use short, distinctive text fragments. “COSTCO” is better than “COSTCO WHOLESALE #482 CITY ST”.
Check your Bank Tab for recurring transactions that always go to the same account. These are great candidates for rules.
Rules apply instantly to new imports and can be applied to existing pending transactions.

AI Categorization

For transactions that don’t match any rule, BeeKeeper uses AI to suggest a category. The AI looks at the transaction description, the amount, and your organization’s past categorization history.

How AI categorization works:

After transactions are imported and rules are applied, any remaining unmatched transactions are sent to the AI.
The AI analyzes the description and compares it to your historical patterns.
It suggests an account and vendor, along with a confidence level.
High-confidence matches are shown as suggestions on the Bank Tab.
You review and accept or correct each suggestion.

The AI gets better over time as you categorize more transactions. The more history it has, the more accurate its suggestions become.

Ignoring and Resetting

Ignoring Transactions

Some imported transactions don’t need to be in your books. Common examples include bank fees you want to skip, duplicate imports, or personal transactions on a shared account.

To ignore a transaction:

Find the transaction in the Bank Tab.
Click Ignore.
The transaction is dismissed from your review queue.

Ignored transactions are not deleted. They are kept for your records but won’t become journal entries.

Resetting Transactions

If you categorized or matched a transaction incorrectly, you can reset it back to pending and start over.

To reset a transaction:

Find the transaction (it may be in the Matched or Ignored list).
Click Reset.
All matching, categorization, and vendor assignments are cleared.
The transaction returns to Pending status for fresh review.

Deleting Transactions

In rare cases, you may want to permanently remove an imported transaction. This is different from ignoring – deleted transactions are gone for good.

To delete a transaction:

Find the transaction in the Bank Tab.
Click Delete.
Confirm the deletion.

Use delete sparingly. In most cases, Ignore is the better choice because it preserves the record.

Tips for Efficient Review

Set up rules first. Before reviewing a large batch of transactions, look for patterns. Create rules for your most common vendors (Amazon, Costco, your school district, etc.). This dramatically reduces manual work.
Review weekly. Don’t let transactions pile up for months. A weekly review of 10-20 transactions takes a few minutes. A quarterly review of 200 transactions takes much longer.
Use Bulk Accept after checking. Scroll through matched transactions to verify the suggestions look right, then Bulk Accept to process them all at once.
Handle transfers first. Look for transfer pairs and accept those before doing Bulk Accept. This prevents transfers from being accidentally accepted as regular transactions.
Trust but verify the AI. AI suggestions are usually good, but always glance at the account and vendor before accepting. The AI learns from your corrections, so fixing mistakes early improves future accuracy.
Use payee sibling categorization. When you categorize one transaction from a payee, check if similar transactions were auto-suggested. This can save several clicks.
Create rules from repeated corrections. If you keep correcting the same payee to the same account, create a rule so you never have to do it again.
Work oldest to newest. This keeps your books in chronological order and makes your reports accurate at any point in time.

Common Questions

Q: What happens if I accept a transaction with the wrong account? A: The journal entry is created in your books. You can edit or delete the journal entry from the account ledger to fix it. You can also reset the imported transaction and re-accept it.

Q: Can I undo an accept? A: Yes. Reset the imported transaction to clear the link to the journal entry. You may also need to delete the journal entry that was created.

Q: Why are some transactions skipped during Bulk Accept? A: Bulk Accept skips transactions that look like potential transfers between your accounts. This prevents you from creating incorrect journal entries. Review these individually and use Accept Transfer for actual transfers.

Q: How does BeeKeeper detect transfers? A: It looks for a matching amount (opposite sign) on one of your other connected bank accounts within 7 days of the transaction date. For example, a -$500 on checking and a +$500 on savings within the same week.

Q: What if the same transaction appears twice? A: Use the Merge feature to combine duplicates. This can happen when bank data refreshes with overlapping date ranges.

Q: Do I need to review every transaction? A: Yes. Every imported transaction should end up either Journaled (accepted) or Ignored. Pending transactions mean your books are incomplete.

Q: How often are transactions imported? A: BeeKeeper fetches new transactions from your bank nightly. You can also trigger a manual refresh from the Bank Tab.

Q: What if a transaction doesn’t have an AI suggestion? A: Some transactions have unusual descriptions that the AI can’t confidently categorize. Categorize these manually and the AI will learn from your choice for next time.

Q: Can I change a rule after creating it? A: Yes. Go to Settings > Transaction Rules to edit or delete rules. Changes apply to future imports. Existing matched transactions are not retroactively changed.

Q: What is the difference between Categorize and Accept? A: Categorize sets the account and vendor but does not create a journal entry. Accept creates the journal entry. You can categorize first and accept later, or accept directly if the match is already correct.