Your Bank Feed Is Not Your Bookkeeping. Treating It Like It Is Costs More Than You Think.
Bank feeds are one of the best things to happen to small business accounting. Transactions arrive on their own, rules categorise them, and the books look up to date. The problem is that "up to date" and "correct" are different things, and a feed only delivers the first one.
What a Feed Actually Does
It imports what the bank recorded: a date, an amount and a description. Everything else, the category, the GST treatment, whether it is business or personal, is a rule or a guess. A rule that was right six months ago can quietly be wrong today.
Where the Errors Hide
- GST coded incorrectly. A rule that applies GST to a supplier who does not charge it, or ignores it where it applies, flows straight into your BAS.
- Personal spending in business categories. A feed cannot tell a business lunch from a personal one.
- Transfers treated as income or expenses. Money moving between your own accounts can inflate both sides if it is not matched properly.
- Loan repayments booked entirely as expenses. The principal portion is not an expense, but a simple rule will treat it as one.
- Duplicates. A payment entered manually and also arriving through the feed.
Why This Matters
Each of these sits quietly in the books, then surfaces at BAS time, tax time, or when a lender asks for financials. Fixing a year of rule-driven errors at once is far more expensive than reviewing a month at a time.
A Simple Monthly Habit
- Review uncategorised and recently categorised transactions, not just the totals.
- Check your rules every few months, particularly after a supplier or pricing change.
- Reconcile to the bank statement and confirm the balances match, not just that the feed ran.
RBizz reviews bank feed rules and monthly reconciliations so your books are correct, not just current. Get in touch if your books have been running on autopilot.
