Receipt matching
Pairing each receipt with the card or bank transaction it belongs to. Every charge has its evidence and every receipt has its payment.
In short
- Matching uses amount, date and merchant name, and each of the three can differ between receipt and statement.
- Tips, foreign exchange and pending holds are the usual reasons an amount doesn't line up.
- Unmatched items in either direction are the to-do list: missing receipts or unexplained charges.
Receipt matching links a receipt to a transaction in a card or bank feed. Once linked, the charge has its supporting document, and the receipt is known to have been paid through a company account rather than personally.
How a match is made
Systems compare three signals:
- Amount: the receipt total against the posted charge.
- Date: the purchase date against the transaction date, allowing for the day or two a charge can take to post.
- Merchant: the store name on the receipt against the statement descriptor, which is often abbreviated or shows a parent company.
Why amounts differ
A restaurant pre-authorizes the bill and the final charge includes the tip. A hotel holds a deposit and charges a different amount at checkout. A purchase in US dollars posts in Canadian dollars at the bank's exchange rate. Good matching tolerates these differences within set limits instead of treating them as mismatches.
What is left after matching is the useful part. Charges with no receipt need chasing. Receipts with no charge are either personal-card purchases to reimburse, or duplicates.
Worked example
A tip that breaks exact matching
The receipt for a team lunch shows $84.00 before tip. The card feed shows $100.80 two days later from "SQ *BISTRO LAURIER". The dates are within the posting window, the merchant matches after removing the payment processor prefix, and the 20% difference is within the tip tolerance. The system links them and records $16.80 as gratuity.