Step-by-step guide to bank reconciliation in Pleelo — from creating a session and importing your CSV to matching transactions and locking the period.
Why Reconciliation Matters More Than You Think
Bank reconciliation is the process of verifying that your financial records match your bank's records. It's how you catch duplicate payments, unrecorded expenses, bank errors, and fraud — before they cause serious problems.
For most small businesses, this process happens once a month, involves downloading a bank statement, opening a spreadsheet, and spending a frustrating hour trying to match up rows. Amounts don't quite align. Reference numbers differ. You resort to eyeballing it and calling it "close enough."
Pleelo replaces that process with a structured workflow that auto-matches what it can, guides you through what's left, and locks the period when you're done. This guide shows you exactly how it works.
Before You Start
You'll need:
- At least one financial account configured in Pleelo (Finance → Accounts)
- Your bank statement for the period you want to reconcile, exported as a CSV file
- A rough idea of the period's opening and closing balance
Preparing Your Bank Statement CSV
Most banks let you export account activity as a CSV or Excel file. Look for an "Export" or "Download" button in your online banking portal.
If your bank provides Excel (.xlsx), you'll need to save it as CSV before importing. In Excel or Google Sheets: File → Save As → CSV (Comma delimited).
The CSV should have columns for at minimum:
- Transaction date
- Description or reference
- Amount (debit or credit)
- Balance (optional but helpful)
Pleelo's import wizard lets you map your bank's column names to the expected fields, so don't worry if the headers don't match exactly.
Step 1: Create a New Reconciliation Session
Navigate to Finance → Bank Reconciliation and click New Reconciliation.
Configure the session:
- Account — Select the financial account you're reconciling (e.g., Chase Business Checking, Bank of America Savings)
- Period start — The first date of the statement period (e.g., January 1, 2026)
- Period end — The last date of the statement period (e.g., January 31, 2026)
- Statement closing balance — The ending balance shown on your bank statement. Pleelo will use this to validate the reconciliation when you close the session.
Click Create Session. Pleelo opens the reconciliation workspace for this period.
At this point, the left side of the workspace shows your Pleelo transactions for the selected period and account — all the income and expenses you've recorded in the system. The right side is empty, waiting for your bank statement import.
Step 2: Import Your CSV Bank Statement
In the reconciliation workspace, click Import Bank Statement.
Mapping Your Columns
Pleelo shows you the first few rows of your CSV and asks you to map each column:
- Date column — Which column contains the transaction date
- Description column — Which column contains the transaction description or reference number
- Amount column — If your bank uses separate debit/credit columns, map both. If it uses a single amount column with positive/negative values, map that one.
- Type column (optional) — If your bank has a separate column marking transactions as credit or debit
Set the date format that matches your bank's export (MM/DD/YYYY is the US standard; DD/MM/YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD are also supported).
Click Preview to see how the first 10 rows will be interpreted. If they look correct, click Import.
What Gets Imported
Pleelo imports each row as a bank statement transaction with:
- Date
- Description
- Amount (positive for credits, negative for debits)
Your Pleelo records remain unchanged. The import only adds bank-side data to the reconciliation session.
Step 3: Review Auto-Matched Transactions
After importing, Pleelo runs its auto-matching algorithm. It compares bank statement transactions to Pleelo records based on:
- Amount match — The amounts match exactly
- Date proximity — The dates are within a configurable tolerance (typically ±3 days, to account for bank processing delays)
- Reference number — If the bank description contains a reference number that matches a Pleelo invoice or payment record
The auto-matched pairs appear in the Matched column of the workspace, shown in green. These are the ones Pleelo is confident about.
What to Check in Auto-Matches
Don't just accept all auto-matches blindly. Scan through them and look for:
- Same amount, wrong transaction — Two transactions of the same amount in the same period can be confused. Click any match pair to see both sides and verify the descriptions make sense together.
- Timing issues — A payment recorded in Pleelo on January 28 matched to a bank credit on January 31 is fine. A match spanning different months might be suspicious.
For any match you disagree with, click Unmatch to send both transactions back to the unmatched pool.
Step 4: Accept or Reject Suggestions
Beyond confident auto-matches, Pleelo may show suggested matches — pairs where the amounts or dates are close but not exact. These appear in an amber "Suggestions" section.
For each suggestion, you'll see:
- The bank statement entry (left)
- The proposed Pleelo record (right)
- A confidence score based on how closely they match
Review each suggestion individually. Click Accept if it's correct, Reject if it's not a match. Rejected suggestions return both entries to the unmatched pool.
Step 5: Manually Match Remaining Items
After auto-matching and suggestion review, you'll have two lists of unmatched items:
- Unmatched bank transactions — Bank entries with no corresponding Pleelo record
- Unmatched Pleelo records — Pleelo entries with no corresponding bank transaction
Matching Manually
Select one item from each side and click Match. Pleelo accepts the pairing and moves them to the Matched section.
When a Bank Transaction Has No Pleelo Record
This is common for:
- Bank fees and charges
- Interest earned
- Automatic debits you forgot to record
- Incoming payments not yet entered
For each unmatched bank transaction, you have two options:
- Create a record — Click Add to Pleelo to create a matching income or expense entry in real time. The reconciliation session creates the Pleelo record and immediately matches the pair.
- Mark as exception — If the transaction is something you're investigating or will handle separately, mark it as an exception with a note. It won't block the reconciliation from closing.
When a Pleelo Record Has No Bank Transaction
This usually means:
- A payment you recorded in Pleelo hasn't cleared the bank yet (timing difference)
- A payment was returned or reversed
- The transaction was recorded under the wrong account
For outstanding Pleelo records that are legitimately just pending bank clearance, mark them as Outstanding with an explanation. They'll carry forward to the next reconciliation session.
Step 6: Review Unmatched Items
Before closing the session, review the Reconciliation Summary:
- Opening balance (from your Pleelo records)
- + Credits this period (matched bank credits)
- − Debits this period (matched bank debits)
- = Calculated closing balance
Pleelo compares this calculated closing balance against the statement closing balance you entered in Step 1. If they match, you're in balance. If they don't, there's something unmatched that needs attention.
The summary shows exactly how much the discrepancy is, making it easy to hunt for the missing item. A $500 discrepancy means a $500 transaction is unaccounted for somewhere.
Work through remaining unmatched items until either the balances reconcile or all remaining differences are explained (as exceptions or outstanding items).
Step 7: Complete and Lock the Session
Once you're satisfied with the reconciliation, click Close Session.
Pleelo confirms:
- The period, account, and balance summary
- Number of matched transactions
- Number of outstanding items and exceptions
Click Confirm and Lock. The session is now closed and locked. No one can add, edit, or delete transactions within this period for this account without first unlocking the reconciliation — which requires explicit confirmation and is logged.
The closed session becomes a permanent audit record. You can open it at any time to review what was matched, what was flagged as an exception, and who approved the closure.
Tips for Faster Monthly Reconciliation
Reconcile monthly, not quarterly. The more transactions you let pile up, the harder it is to recall what they were. A 30-transaction monthly reconciliation takes 15 minutes. A 90-transaction quarterly one takes an hour.
Enter transactions as they happen. The closer your Pleelo records are to real-time, the more auto-matches you'll get. If you're only entering expenses once a week, you'll have more manual work at reconciliation time.
Standardize your descriptions. When recording payments in Pleelo, use the same reference numbers your bank uses. "ACH-TRF-20260115" in both systems means auto-matching works better.
Use the exception log. Don't force a match just to close the session. Marking something as an exception and investigating it next month is better than creating a phantom match that distorts your books.
Ready to Reconcile Your First Month?
Bank reconciliation in Pleelo takes the chaos out of end-of-month close. The structured session workflow keeps you accountable, the auto-matching saves time, and the locked period gives you a clean audit trail.
Open Your Bank Reconciliation Module →
If your bank uses a non-standard CSV format or you're having trouble with the column mapping, our support team can walk you through a custom import setup.
