Learned matches — the engine remembers what you confirm

Overview

Banks describe the same thing in different words: ICICI prints Int.Pd, Punjab National Bank Int: … and TAX:, AU MONTHLY INTEREST PAYOUT. The first time you confirm one of them as Bank interest, Bank Reconciliation learns the mapping and reuses it for every later statement — whichever of your banks wrote it. The same happens for a tenant's rent (the mapping points at the lease, so the right month's due is still chosen by amount and date), bank charges, loan EMIs, property tax, GST challans and the categories you exclude entries under.

A learned match keys on three things read from the narration with the digits, dates, references and channel words stripped away:

• the wording (its signature — the same narration again),
• the kind of entry it is across banks (interest credit, sweep, charges, loan, TDS, property tax, GST, income tax, pension …), and
• the payer parsed from the narration.

Each one remembers how often it was confirmed, how often it was rejected, the amounts seen, the banks it was confirmed on and when. They live under Bank Reconciliation → Rules → Learned matches.

Before you start

• Learning is on by default (Settings → Learn from confirmed matches). With it off nothing new is learned; what was learned before still applies until you switch those matches off.
• A learned match never beats a UTR that matches a recorded reference, and never fires when an explicit rule fits the entry — rules are yours and explicit, learned matches are inferred.
• A learned match applies automatically only at or above the Auto-confirm at threshold and when nothing contradicts it: if two learned matches fit the same entry with different outcomes, or a record on the books fits about as well, the entry is proposed or flagged Needs review instead. A learned match that was rejected even once is only ever proposed until a fresh confirmation restores it.

Steps

Let it learn

1. Confirm proposals, match entries by hand or exclude them with a reason as usual. Each decision writes or updates a learned match (the row's history shows BANK_MEMORY_LEARNED).
2. Import the next statement. The import report's Matched on import line reads, for example, 12 auto-matched (9 from what you confirmed before) · 3 proposed · 2 unmatched.
3. In the queue a proposal that came from a learned match carries the chip Learned · 3 confirmations · ICICI, PNB; hover it for the explanation (Learned from 3 earlier confirmations (ICICI, PNB)). An entry matched automatically this way reads learned under the match.

Review, switch off, forget

1. Open Rules → Learned matches. Each row shows the narration signature and its concept, the outcome (the category, or the lease for rent), how often it was confirmed and rejected, the banks and the last confirmation.
2. Use the On switch to stop a mapping without losing its history; Forget removes it (matches it already made are kept; it is learned again the next time you confirm such an entry).
3. Reject a learned proposal in the queue and the mapping counts a rejection; once rejections reach confirmations it switches itself off. Undo a match and the mapping loses that confirmation.

Rebuild from history

Click Rebuild from confirmed matches to recompute every learned match from all the confirmed matches of the landlord — useful once after this feature arrived, or after a clean-up. It is safe to run again: counts and amounts are recomputed; mappings you switched off or rejected stay off; mappings nothing confirms any more are removed.

Example

Kaveri confirms the ICICI entry …:Int.Pd:01-03-2026 to 31-03-2026 as Bank interest in March. In April she imports her PNB statement; its … Int:3987.00 and TAX:0.00 is proposed as Bank interest with the chip Learned · 1 confirmation · ICICI (one confirmation on another bank is not enough to auto-confirm). She confirms it. By June, with interest confirmed four times on two banks, the AU statement's MONTHLY INTEREST PAYOUT is Matched · auto with Learned from 4 earlier confirmations (ICICI, PNB) — and the Rent Ledger is untouched, because interest is a category, not a rent due.

FAQs

Does a learned match post rent receipts on its own?

No more than any other automatic match: an automatic rent match marks the bank entry only, unless Auto-post rent receipts on automatic matches is on under Settings. Your own confirmations post the receipt when you tick it.

How sure is "sure enough"?

A learned match starts at 60 and gains up to 25 for repeated confirmations, 10 when the wording is identical, 5 when this bank has seen it before and up to 10 when the amount matches what was seen before; an amount far outside the range seen costs 15 and every rejection 20. It is capped at 98 — below a UTR match — and compared with your Auto-confirm at threshold like any other score.

What does "No open record" on a learned rent proposal mean?

The mapping points at a lease that has no open rent due for this entry (the rent row was not generated yet, or it is already settled). Generate the rent row in the Rent Ledger and run matching again; such a proposal cannot be confirmed as it stands.

Troubleshooting

An entry was auto-matched to the wrong category

Undo the match from the row (the mapping loses a confirmation), match it correctly (a new mapping is learned) and, if the wrong mapping keeps winning, switch it off under Learned matches. Raise Auto-confirm at if automatic matches are generally too eager.

Nothing is being learned

Check Settings → Learn from confirmed matches is on, and that the entries you confirm are not decided by a rule (a rule's matches are not learned separately — the rule already covers them). Click Rebuild from confirmed matches to learn from older confirmations.

Related articles

• Bank Reconciliation
• Matching rules
• The rent ledger