Banking
Import a bank statement, match transactions to unpaid bills, and decide what needs a bill.
Import Bank Statement
Owner's Drawings is built, but lives on the Finance Dashboard alongside VAT and Tax Accruals, not here — see Finance Dashboard.
The wizard has three steps: Upload CSV, Review Matches, and Complete Import. A separate Unmatched Transactions screen (covered below) acts as a safety net for anything left over from a past import.
Step 1 — Upload CSV
Go to Money → Bank Import. Choose your bank from the dropdown, then drop your statement CSV into the upload area or click to browse for it.
Step 1 — Upload CSV, with a bank selector (Starling Bank shown) and drag-and-drop upload area
Click Upload & Process once a file is selected to move to Step 2.
Step 2 — Review Matches
Every transaction in the file is sorted into one of three groups, each shown as a count card at the top of the screen:
| Group | What it means |
|---|---|
| Auto-Matched | The transaction amount matches an unpaid bill exactly, and the payee name matches the supplier closely enough to confirm automatically |
| Need Review | The amount matches an unpaid bill, but the payee name doesn't match the supplier closely enough to confirm on its own — a human needs to say yes or no |
| Unmatched | No unpaid bill matches this transaction at all — it's treated as a new expense (see Category vs. bill, below) |
Auto-Matched Transactions
Each row shows the transaction date, payee, the bill it was matched to, the amount, and a confirmation that it's matched.
Auto-Matched Transactions — exact amount and a clearly matching supplier name, confirmed without input
Suggested Matches — Please Review
Where the amount matches a bill but the payee name is close rather than identical — for example a transaction from "ABD Ltd" against a bill owed to "ABC Ltd" — the system flags it for review rather than guessing. Each row shows a Bill Amount / Transaction / Difference comparison, with Confirm Match and Not a Match buttons.
Suggested Matches — a close-but-not-exact supplier name match, with the amount comparison shown for you to judge
New Expenses — Category vs. Bill
Every Unmatched transaction is listed under New Expenses — Need Categorization, with a count badge showing how many are waiting. Each one needs two separate decisions before the import can complete:
| Decision | Required? |
|---|---|
| What category does this belong to? | Always |
| Does this transaction need a bill created? | Only sometimes |
New Expenses — category dropdown, "Remember" checkbox, and the "Create a bill" panel
Each row shows the transaction date, payee, and amount, with a Category dropdown (no category is pre-selected — pick the one that fits). Below it, a Remember "[Payee]" = this category checkbox saves that payee-to-category mapping, so future imports from the same payee are categorised automatically rather than asking again every time.
Tick "Create a bill for this transaction" when…
…the transaction is a genuine purchase from a supplier — something you'd expect a receipt or invoice for, and where you want that spend attached to a named supplier's history.
Ticking it and clicking Create Bill will:
| Suggest an existing supplier | If the name is a close match, click Yes, use this supplier — or No, it's different if it's genuinely new. |
| Create the bill as already paid | Since the money has already left your account, there's no outstanding balance to chase, and it won't appear on the Aged Payables Report. |
Leave it unticked when…
…it isn't a purchase from a supplier — salary payments, transfers between your own accounts, tax payments already tracked elsewhere, bank charges, and similar. Just set the category and move on.
Worked Examples
| Transaction | Category | Bill? | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accountant (recurring Direct Debit) | Accountancy & Legal | Yes | Genuine third-party supplier expense |
| HMRC payment | Taxation | Yes, if this is your only record | Not double-counted in reports — HMRC is excluded as a tax authority. Confirm once whether it's also tracked elsewhere |
| Wholesaler / stock delivery | Stock | Yes | Genuine purchase — keep the paper invoice |
| Staff salary payment | Payroll | No | Not a supplier purchase — a bill would duplicate payroll records and add staff as "suppliers" |
| Staff pension contribution | Payroll | No | Same reasoning as salaries — an employer pension cost, not a supplier bill |
| Transfer to your own savings account | Personal | No | Money moving to your own account, not a business expense |
| Personal drawing | Personal | No | Personal, not a business bill |
| Bank charge / overdraft interest | Bank Charges & Interest | Usually no | One-off cost, no supplier record generally needed |
Keep the Paper Invoice
Keep the original supplier invoice or receipt, physical or digital, in your normal filing system — in case HMRC ever asks.
This matters especially for VAT: a bill created this way leaves VAT status unconfirmed by default. You'll see a note on screen — "VAT status for this supplier isn't set automatically — you'll need to confirm it once on the Supplier Card afterwards" — and you'll need the actual invoice to get the VAT treatment right, since the bank transaction alone only shows the amount paid, not the VAT breakdown.
Confirm VAT status afterwards on the supplier's own Supplier Card
Unmatched Transactions — the Safety Net
Sometimes a transaction gets categorised but a bill never actually gets created — for example, if "Create a bill" is ticked for a brand-new supplier and the flow doesn't complete. That transaction can become invisible on this Bank Import screen once you've moved past that import.
Money → Unmatched Transactions shows everything still waiting on attention, from any import:
| Shown | Not shown |
|---|---|
| Rows still needing a category at all | Rows deliberately categorised with no bill wanted (Personal, Payroll, etc.) |
| Rows categorised, bill intended, never created |
A row still waiting on a bill — the supplier panel opens automatically