Categorize vs Match Bank Transactions in QuickBooks Online

This guide follows Intuit’s help article on matching bank and credit card transactions in QuickBooks Online. Intuit says downloaded transactions first appear on the For review tab, and that they “won’t affect your books until you match or categorize them.”

Intuit’s articles use more than one name for this holding area. The matching article says Pending (or For review) when it describes undoing, and Intuit’s duplicates article says the For review tab may be called Pending. Check which label appears in your account.

The same applies to transactions you brought in from a file. If you uploaded a spreadsheet converted from a PDF statement, the rows go through the same review step.

Intuit draws a simple line between the two actions:

• Match: use this when you already entered the record, such as an invoice, bill or receipt. Matching links the bank transaction to that record.

• Categorize: use this when no record exists. Intuit says this “creates a brand-new record in QuickBooks.”

The article lists the kinds of records you can match: invoices and bills, paychecks and tax payments, checks and receipts, bank transfers, and credit card payments and refunds. It also mentions that you can exclude a transaction you do not want in your books.

Intuit adds two cautions. Always verify that you actually sent or received the payment before completing a match, and note that matching a bill or invoice marks it paid automatically.

Intuit says QuickBooks suggests matches for transactions with the same amount, within a window of 90 days before to 20 days after the transaction date.

The steps in the article run from All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions. You review the Categorize or Match column, select the row or the sparkle icon to expand details, verify the information, and select Post. If a suggestion is wrong, Intuit says to select Find other match. For transfers and credit card payments, you choose a category from the Category dropdown and then select Post.

A synthetic example: you recorded an invoice payment of 1,250.00 dated the 3rd. The bank line for 1,250.00 downloads on the 5th. The amounts are equal and the dates fall inside the window, so a suggestion is possible. If the bank instead deposited 1,225.00 because of a 25.00 fee, the amounts differ and, according to Intuit, no suggestion would appear.

Intuit lists situations where QuickBooks will not suggest a match:

• Bank fees or discounts change the total amount.

• Several payments were deposited together as one group.

• The record falls outside the 90-day and 20-day window.

• The record was already reconciled. In that case Intuit says to exclude the transaction to avoid a duplicate.

The article does not explain how to match grouped deposits manually, so we do not describe that process here.

For a mistaken match, Intuit’s steps are: from Transactions, open the Posted tab, select the account, find the transaction and select Undo. QuickBooks moves it back to Pending (or For review) so you can correct it.

The article does not state any time limit for undoing a match, and it does not say what undoing does to an already reconciled record, so check with your accountant before touching reconciled items. If you keep statement data in a spreadsheet, PDFtoRow can convert a bank statement PDF to Excel or CSV for comparison.