Question

Why does QuickBooks Online no longer automatically suggest matches for my downloaded bank transactions, and how do I fix it?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
December 28, 2020
26 replies
106 views

When in the banking screen QBO used to identify matched transactions, and ask for a confirmation, but it has stopped doing that. If I manually search it finds the transaction to match but I have many to match and the auto feature was very useful. Any help or guidance to re-enable this feature would be appreciated. Thank you. ps I am not looking to have the transactions added automatically without a confirmation from me, just the auto match.

QuickBooks Online

Tori B

QuickBooks Team

Good morning, @Steve6515.

Thanks for reaching out to the Community for support. I hope you're enjoying your day so far.

When matching transactions in QuickBooks Online, there's no feature to auto-match them. You'll need to manually match them using the Find match option for now. However, on the other hand, you can set up a new bank rule. When you set up a new bank rule, you no longer need to look for a match on your bank feed transactions manually. QuickBooks Online will scan your downloaded bank transactions and compare them to your recorded transactions.

For example, if you have an invoice for a specific customer and their payment is already there on your bank feed, the system will detect that the invoice in question is a possible match for the payment. Once it detects the match it will be highlighted with a message stating 1 record found. Of course, the number of records found can change if it detects more. The more QuickBooks uses your bank rules, the better it gets at categorizing. After a while, it can even scan transactions and add details like payees. I've included the steps to set up bank rules below.

From the Banking menu, choose Rules.
In the upper-right corner, click on New Rule.
Fill in the required fields of the form.
At the bottom, ensure that Automatically confirm transactions this rule applies to is turned on.

That's all there is to it. Check out Setup bank rules to categorize online banking transactions in QuickBooks Online to see more details about bank rules.

Please do let me know if you have any questions about this process. It's my goal to make your use of QuickBooks as easy as possible. As always, you can reach out to the Community or me at any time. Take care!

S

Steve6515Author

Thank you for the response Tori,

Very much appreciated. Let me work through this and if there are any more questions I will reach out for sure.

Thanks again!.

J

jlk2021

I am having this exact same issue, but with the Desktop version of Quickbooks for Mac 2021. In all previous versions, once I downloaded and opened a .qbo file, the transactions would automatically match themselves. On this version, it doesn't recognize any transactions and I have to manually highlight my QB transaction, then highlight the downloaded transaction of the same amount and then hit Match. The process is extremely laborious. Is there a way around this in the Desktop version?

C

Candice14

Level 8

Hey there, @jlk2021.

Thanks for chiming in on this thread and letting us know that you're having the same issue but in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac 2021.

QuickBooks tries to match transactions you download with similar entries in your register. To make a match, the check number, amount, date, and payee name must be similar with the transaction in QuickBooks. If you can’t make a match, the transaction might be new, reconciled, or the info doesn’t match.

If this doesn't answer your question, can you please provide me with some additional information or screenshots of the unmatched transactions? This will allow me to see why this may be happening to you and your business.

For future reference, cruise on over to this guide: Add and match transactions in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac.

I'll be here if you have follow-up concerns about this or should you need anything else. Have a wonderful day ahead!

J

jlk2021

Thanks, Candice! Is there something different on this version of QB than prior versions? My payees in QB are labeled slightly differently than my payees in my online banking, but that has never made a difference in prior versions. I know that I can create naming rules, but to do this for each one of my vendors would be extremely tedious. I'm unsure why previous versions of QB knew to match the transactions, but this one does not. Feels like I'm missing something.

M

MVEBA

I had a few great answers from Intuit about how to have Rules enter payee. It was suggested I wait 6-8 months and maybe rule would learn payee or call AmEx and tell them to fix their download. Agent hung up when I suggested I'd call back and speak to someone more experienced.

T

Tmo405

Did anyone ever find a solution to the transactions not automatically matching on Macs?

Having the same problem all of a sudden...

C

ckjc1001

it seems no solution has ever been found and online QB is still having this issue from 2021 to now. I am using Window but still encountered to the same issue. I tried to contact the customer service term and tried everything they told me to do but neither one work. Then they simply told me because I am reconciling transactions that are over 6 months. I do not feel it's reasonable given the system was able to perform the suggest match previous (just all in sudden the feature is disable and i have to match every single transaction manually) and secondly, given some clients only give us to work on their books once a year, if the system auto-shut down this suggested match feature just because the transaction is over 6 months, then it will become not friendly for the end-user and their accountant. Also, I tried to set up bank rule, by that, the system keeps asking to select a bank account while I only have one single bank account. So I can't even set up any bank rule. I can assume that the date and the amount matched with the bank transaction, for which it should fall to the suggested match feature. Lastly, if anyone has other suggestion than "clear cache", "manually match", "delete and re-apply payment", "use different browser", "use private browser", please feel free to share as it's very frustrating to match every single bank transaction manually and it is very inefficiency, especially i have over a thousand transaction to match. Thank you.

A

ArielI

QuickBooks Team

Hello, @ckjc1001.

I can see how important it is for you to automatically match all your transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO). Let me clarify the limitations regarding automatic matching for older transactions.

When a transaction is older than six months, QuickBooks will no longer automatically suggest matches with downloaded transactions. However, you can still use the Find Match button to manually locate any existing records. Here's how:

Go to Transactions.
Select Bank transactions.
Choose the transaction you want to match and click Find match.

Additionally, here's a comprehensive guide on reconciling your accounts: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Let me know if you have other concerns about matching transactions in QBO. We'll be right here to help you anytime.

sofiamdc-2341

Community Manager

QuickBooks Online does suggest matches for downloaded bank transactions, but the suggestions only appear when certain conditions are met, and a couple of things can prevent them from showing up at all.

How match suggestions work in QuickBooks Online

When you download a bank transaction in the For Review tab, QuickBooks looks for existing records (invoices, expenses, payments) that could be a match. A suggestion appears when:

The downloaded transaction amount matches an existing record exactly, and
The transaction date falls within 90 days before or 20 days after the existing record's date.

If both conditions are met, the match suggestion appears in the For Review tab with "1 record found" (or more). You still confirm before anything is accepted.

How to match transactions outside the automatic match window

QuickBooks Online automatically suggests matches for transactions falling within 90 days before and 20 days after the downloaded transaction date. If your transaction falls outside this date range, automatic match suggestions won't appear, and you will need to search for it manually:

Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions.
Select the transaction in the For Review tab.
Select Find match, then select Find other matches to search for and match the transaction.

Other reasons match suggestions may disappear

Browser cache: Outdated browser data can affect how the bank feed loads. Try opening QuickBooks in an incognito or private browser window, or clear your cache.
Amounts don't align: Even a small difference (a fee, rounding) prevents a suggestion. Use the "resolve the difference" section in the match flow to account for it.
The record was already matched or reconciled: If the invoice or payment was already matched to a different transaction, it won't appear as an available match.

Reduce manual work going forward: bank rules

If you have recurring transactions that follow consistent patterns, such as regular vendor payments or recurring customer deposits, you can set up a bank rule to have QuickBooks categorize them automatically when they're downloaded. Rules work best for categorizing new transactions; they don't match downloaded transactions to existing invoices. Go to All apps > Accounting > Bank transactions, then select Rules in the top right to set one up.

If you have questions about a specific transaction that should be matching but isn't, share the details here and we can take a closer look.

Helpful Resources:

sofiamdc-2341

Community Manager

QuickBooks Online does suggest matches for downloaded bank transactions, but the suggestions only appear when certain conditions are met, and a couple of things can prevent them from showing up at all.

How match suggestions work in QuickBooks Online

When you download a bank transaction in the For Review tab, QuickBooks looks for existing records (invoices, expenses, payments) that could be a match. A suggestion appears when:

The downloaded transaction amount matches an existing record exactly, and
The transaction date falls within 90 days before or 20 days after the existing record's date.

If both conditions are met, the match suggestion appears in the For Review tab with "1 record found" (or more). You still confirm before anything is accepted.

How to match transactions outside the automatic match window

QuickBooks Online automatically suggests matches for transactions falling within 90 days before and 20 days after the downloaded transaction date. If your transaction falls outside this date range, automatic match suggestions won't appear, and you will need to search for it manually:

Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions.
Select the transaction in the For Review tab.
Select Find match, then select Find other matches to search for and match the transaction.

Other reasons match suggestions may disappear

Browser cache: Outdated browser data can affect how the bank feed loads. Try opening QuickBooks in an incognito or private browser window, or clear your cache.
Amounts don't align: Even a small difference (a fee, rounding) prevents a suggestion. Use the "resolve the difference" section in the match flow to account for it.
The record was already matched or reconciled: If the invoice or payment was already matched to a different transaction, it won't appear as an available match.

Reduce manual work going forward: bank rules

If you have recurring transactions that follow consistent patterns, such as regular vendor payments or recurring customer deposits, you can set up a bank rule to have QuickBooks categorize them automatically when they're downloaded. Rules work best for categorizing new transactions; they don't match downloaded transactions to existing invoices. Go to All apps > Accounting > Bank transactions, then select Rules in the top right to set one up.

If you have questions about a specific transaction that should be matching but isn't, share the details here and we can take a closer look.

Helpful Resources:

sofiamdc-2341

Community Manager

QuickBooks Online does suggest matches for downloaded bank transactions, but the suggestions only appear when certain conditions are met, and a couple of things can prevent them from showing up at all.

How match suggestions work in QuickBooks Online

When you download a bank transaction in the For Review tab, QuickBooks looks for existing records (invoices, expenses, payments) that could be a match. A suggestion appears when:

The downloaded transaction amount matches an existing record exactly, and
The transaction date falls within 90 days before or 20 days after the existing record's date.

If both conditions are met, the match suggestion appears in the For Review tab with "1 record found" (or more). You still confirm before anything is accepted.

How to match transactions outside the automatic match window

QuickBooks Online automatically suggests matches for transactions falling within 90 days before and 20 days after the downloaded transaction date. If your transaction falls outside this date range, automatic match suggestions won't appear, and you will need to search for it manually:

Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions.
Select the transaction in the For Review tab.
Select Find match, then select Find other matches to search for and match the transaction.

Other reasons match suggestions may disappear

Browser cache: Outdated browser data can affect how the bank feed loads. Try opening QuickBooks in an incognito or private browser window, or clear your cache.
Amounts don't align: Even a small difference (a fee, rounding) prevents a suggestion. Use the "resolve the difference" section in the match flow to account for it.
The record was already matched or reconciled: If the invoice or payment was already matched to a different transaction, it won't appear as an available match.

Reduce manual work going forward: bank rules

If you have recurring transactions that follow consistent patterns, such as regular vendor payments or recurring customer deposits, you can set up a bank rule to have QuickBooks categorize them automatically when they're downloaded. Rules work best for categorizing new transactions; they don't match downloaded transactions to existing invoices. Go to All apps > Accounting > Bank transactions, then select Rules in the top right to set one up.

If you have questions about a specific transaction that should be matching but isn't, share the details here and we can take a closer look.

Helpful Resources:

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