Overview
Bank Feed Allocations helps you categorize bank transactions that come in through your connected bank feed or uploaded CSV statements. Each transaction can be matched to an existing record in your books, or used to create a new expense, invoice, or bank transfer.
When you have many transactions to process, the Process with AI feature can speed things up by automatically matching and suggesting categorizations for you.
How AI Processing Works
When you click Process with AI, each unallocated transaction goes through two steps.
Step 1 — Match Against Existing Records
Before any AI is involved, Beeswax searches your existing accounting records for a matching entry. This step is fast and does not use any AI credits.
The system looks for:
- Invoices — for money coming in (deposits)
- Expenses and Payroll — for money going out (withdrawals)
- Bank Transfers — checked in both directions
- Raw Journal Entries — checked in both directions
Matching is scored based on three factors:
| Factor | How It Works |
|---|---|
| Amount | An exact amount match scores highest. Entries within 10–20% are also considered to allow for tax variations. |
| Date | Transactions within 1 day of each other score highest. Entries up to 7 days apart are still considered. |
| Description | Keywords from the bank description are compared against the entry title and company name. |
If a strong match is found (90% or above), the payment is created automatically. If a likely match is found (70–89%), it is shown as a Suggested match for you to confirm.
Step 2 — AI Categorization
If no strong match was found in Step 1, the AI analyses the transaction and suggests what to do with it. The AI is given:
- The transaction itself (date, description, amount) and its direction — money in or money out
- Your chart of accounts, tax codes, and known vendors
- How similar transactions have been categorized in the past
- Open invoices or expenses near the transaction date — so the AI can recognise an incoming payment that's likely the customer paying an existing invoice, even if the amount or date didn't quite match Step 1's scoring
- Already-paid entries that were never linked to a bank transaction — so the AI can warn you about a possible duplicate payment
The AI may then either:
| Suggestion | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Match to an existing entry | The AI thinks this bank line is the payment for an invoice or expense already in your books. The suggestion links straight to that entry — confirm to record the payment. |
| Categorize as new | The AI suggests an account, tax code, vendor name, and type (Expense or Invoice). The fields are pre-filled and you confirm or edit before saving. |
If an invoice was already marked as paid but the payment was never linked to a bank transaction, the AI's reasoning will flag both possibilities — that this bank line is the missing bank-side of the existing payment, or that it might be a duplicate payment from the customer — so you can decide.
If the AI cannot confidently do either, the transaction is marked as No suggestion and you categorize it manually.
Categorizing Transactions
Click any transaction row to expand it and see your options:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| New Expense + Payment | Create a new expense and record the payment against it |
| New Invoice + Payment | Create a new invoice and record the payment against it |
| Apply Payment to an Expense | Match to an existing unpaid expense |
| Apply Payment to an Invoice | Match to an existing unpaid invoice |
| Create Bank Transfer | Record a transfer between your own bank accounts |
If the system found Potential Matches (existing entries that partially match the transaction), these are shown at the top of the expanded row. Click the checkmark to allocate directly to a match.
Transaction Statuses
| Status | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Needs Review | Not yet matched or categorized |
| Suggested | The system has proposed matching this bank transaction to an existing entry |
| Allocated | Matched to a record and payment created |
| Ignored | Marked as not needing allocation (e.g. a personal transaction) |
When AI Processing Is Available
AI processing requires an active configuration on your account. There are two options:
| Option | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Beeswax AI | Requires a paid Pro plan or above with the AI Processing add-on. Not available during the trial period. |
| Bring Your Own Key | Use your own API key from a supported AI provider (e.g. Google Gemini). Available on any paid plan. |
If AI processing is not configured, the Process with AI button will direct you to Account Settings > AI Processing to set it up.
Trial accounts: You can still use Bank Feed Allocations during your trial — the automatic matching against existing records (Step 1) works without AI, and you can always categorize transactions manually. AI-powered suggestions require either a paid plan with the Beeswax AI add-on, or your own API key.
When AI Processing Is Most Useful
AI processing works best when:
- You have many transactions to categorize at once
- You want account and tax code suggestions pre-filled
- You have a history of categorized transactions for the AI to learn from
- You want vendor names automatically identified
AI processing adds less value when:
- You only have a few transactions to review
- Your chart of accounts has not been set up yet
- Your books are completely up to date with no open invoices or expenses, no recent activity, and no transactions to categorize
Reprocessing
Clicking Reprocess with AI will:
- Re-run the matching step (Step 1) for all unallocated transactions — useful if new invoices or expenses have been created since the last run
- Retry AI categorization for transactions that previously failed due to a temporary error
- Skip transactions where AI has already provided a result, to avoid unnecessary processing
Tip: If you have created new invoices or expenses since the last run, reprocessing can pick up matches that were not available before.
Setting Up AI Processing
- Navigate to Account Settings > AI Processing
- Choose your AI mode — Beeswax AI or Bring Your Own Key
- If using Bring Your Own Key, enter your API key
- Return to Bank Feed Allocations and click Process with AI