South African bank feeds and statement imports
Why South African bank feeds in Achekam still wait for bank approval, and how statement imports keep a business's books reconciled in the meantime.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Running a business businesses in South Africa
If you have used accounting software before, you probably expect your bank transactions to appear in the books by themselves each morning. In Achekam you will find South African banks listed under bank connections, and you may be surprised to see each one waiting rather than connected.
That is not a fault on your side. A bank feed needs the bank's permission as well as the software's, and those permissions are not yet in place. Until they are, your statements come in as files. Done properly, that keeps your books every bit as reconciled; it just needs a routine.
Feeds listed but waiting for bank approval
Bank feeds are listed for South African banks and for Stitch, an aggregator that connects to several banks. Each one stays waiting until the bank approves access and the credentials are in place on Achekam's server. As shipped, no live bank feed is connected, and every direct bank connection needs the bank's approval first.
So there is nothing for you to switch on today, and no date to plan around. Plan instead on importing statements, which works for every bank.
Formats you can import today
A business can import bank statements as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053 files.
Where you have a choice, download a structured format such as OFX or CSV rather than a PDF. Structured files carry the transactions as data, so there is less to interpret. PDFs work too. Where the workspace has an AI model configured, it can read scanned or unrecognised PDFs, and every amount it reads must appear on the page; nothing is filled in that the statement does not show.
Download whole statement periods, not a custom date range that might cut a day in half. The check described next works best on statements that start and end where the bank says they do.
The opening-plus-movements check
Every import is checked so that the opening balance plus the movements equals the closing balance. It is a simple test and it catches the problems that matter:
- A missing page. If a PDF statement lost a page in the download, the movements will not reach the closing balance.
- A misread line. If a figure was read wrongly, the arithmetic will not work.
- A wrong file. If someone imports last month's statement again, the opening balance will not follow on from the last one.
In words: a statement opening at the balance your books already show, plus the month's deposits, less the month's payments, must land exactly on the closing balance printed on the statement. If it does not, something is wrong with the file, and you find out now rather than at year end.
Matching and explaining lines
Once a statement is in, each line has to find its place in the books. Bank lines are matched by suggestion, and a person accepts each match. A line that is not yet in the books, such as a bank charge or a debit order nobody recorded, becomes a suggested journal that a person approves.
A reconciliation completes only when the difference is nil, or when every leftover line is explained. That rule is what makes the reconciliation worth having: nothing is quietly left unexplained. For the general method, AccountingTools walks through the bank reconciliation process of comparing your cash records with the bank statement and adjusting the books.
One gap to know about: matching a bank receipt to a customer invoice does not record the payment on the invoice. The payment must also be recorded in receivables, otherwise the customer's invoice still shows as unpaid and your debtors list overstates what you are owed. Make recording the receipt part of the same sitting as the match.
Keep the statements themselves
The import puts the transactions into your books, but the statement file is still a source document your accountant or auditor may ask to see. Keep each month's file. Document Centre in Achekam is a folder-based store where a business can upload files or whole folders, tag them and search them, so a folder per bank account with one statement per month is easy to set up and easy to find later. A statement that was imported but never kept is awkward to explain when someone asks where a figure came from.
A monthly import routine
A routine turns statement imports from a chore into a habit. At the start of each month:
- Download last month's statement for every business bank account, in a structured format where possible.
- Import each one and confirm it passes the opening-plus-movements check.
- Accept or correct the suggested matches.
- Approve or correct the suggested journals for bank charges, interest and anything else not yet recorded.
- Record customer receipts in receivables for every deposit matched to an invoice.
- Explain any line you cannot match, in words someone else would understand.
- Close the month.
The last step has its own check. Before a month is closed, the screen checks that the ledger balances and that no posting suggestions, unposted bills or unmatched bank lines are waiting. A closed month then refuses postings from every source, so a late import cannot disturb a month you have already reported on.
If customers pay you online, gateway payouts arrive in the same statements; online payment options for South African invoices explains how those payments are recorded. Wages leave in a single bulk debit on payday, as covered in producing a wages file your bank will import, and the statutory payments that follow are set out in UIF declarations, UI-19s and the COIDA return.
Set a fixed day each month for the import, and keep to it. Reconciled books are mostly a matter of not letting statements pile up.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
