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In this tutorial, you’ll take a bank account from zero data to your first confirmed matches in Bank Match. By the end, you’ll have connected an account, created and applied a matching rule, approved an AI-suggested match, and cleared the rest by hand: the same loop you’ll repeat every close period.

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Prerequisites

  • A DualEntry role with permission to create Bank Match rules. Admin, Controller, and Accountant have this permission by default, but it’s configurable, so check with your Admin if you’re not sure.
  • A GL cash or liability account already set up in your chart of accounts for the bank account you’re about to connect.

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Step 1: Connect your bank

  1. Navigate to Company → Bank Connections in the sidebar and select Add Bank Connection.
  2. Search for your bank, then sign in with your online banking credentials in the aggregator’s hosted window.
  3. Select the accounts you want to connect. Each one appears in the Bank Connections list with a status of Connected.
  4. Select the connection and choose the cash or liability account you set up in the prerequisites under GL Account, then save.
Expected result: at least one bank transaction is visible on the To Match tab of the Bank Match page for the account you connected. If your bank isn’t supported by the aggregator, see How to Connect Bank Accounts for the manual statement upload path instead, then continue from Step 2 once your statement is uploaded. If a transaction you expected doesn’t appear, check the Excluded tab: DualEntry automatically excludes transactions dated before your bank-match start date or duplicated from another connected account.

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Step 2: Set up a rule

Look through your unmatched transactions for one you’re confident about: something recurring, like a payroll provider name, a consistent vendor charge, or a check number you’ll see again. You’ll build a rule around whichever of these is most consistent for that transaction.
  1. Open Close Management → Close Workflows → Bank Match, then the Rules view, and start a new rule.
  2. Define the condition using whichever field is most reliable for the transaction you picked: the description or merchant text, an amount or amount range, or a check/reference number.
  3. Define the action: the GL account, vendor/customer, or category the rule should assign, and whether it applies to deposits, withdrawals, or both.
  4. Select Save Rule.
Keep this first rule narrow and exact. A rule that matches on a specific description string is more reliable than one that tries to cover several similar-looking transactions at once. Expected result: the rule appears in your rule list and is active. Saving it doesn’t apply it to your existing unmatched transactions yet; that’s the next step. For the full range of rule criteria and actions, or for creating one conversationally through Accounting Intelligence instead, see How to Create a Bank Match Rule or How to Use Accounting Intelligence to Create Bank Match Rules.

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Step 3: Apply the rule

Back on the To Match tab, the transaction your rule covers is now flagged with a bolt icon, but it hasn’t been created or matched yet.
  1. Select Create & Match. This button appears whenever a bank line has a fully matching rule, and applies every eligible rule match on the tab at once.
Expected result: the transaction matching your rule’s criteria moves out of To Match and into the Matched tab, tagged as rule-matched rather than AI-matched.

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Step 4: Review an AI-suggested match

Bank Match AI runs next, on whatever your rule didn’t catch. It never applies a match on its own: anything it’s confident about is queued for you to review, not matched automatically.
  1. Open the Auto tab.
  2. Review a suggested pair: confirm the amount, date, and description genuinely describe the same transaction.
  3. Select Match to confirm a pairing with an existing transaction, or Post & Match if the suggestion is an AI-drafted record that still needs to post.
Expected result: a confirmed suggestion moves to the Matched tab. It’s normal for Auto to be empty on your first pass. Not every transaction has a confident AI match, and that’s what manual matching is for.

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Step 5: Match the rest manually

For anything still sitting in the To Match tab, select a bank feed transaction and its corresponding GL entry, then choose Match. Repeat for each remaining pair. Expected result: each pair moves to the Matched tab. This is the guaranteed path for anything a rule or AI suggestion doesn’t cover.

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What you built

Your To Match tab now reflects a real close cycle: one transaction cleared by your rule, one reviewed and confirmed from Bank Match AI, and the rest matched by hand. That’s the core Bank Match loop: get data in, let rules and AI handle what they can, and match by hand only what’s left. It’s the same sequence you’ll run every period from here on.

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What’s next

Last modified on August 28, 2026