Import a statement
1
Open Transactions
Select Transactions in the navigation.
2
Upload the file
Select Add new, then Upload statement, and select Continue. Choose a file and choose the account. Billpal fills it in only when the statement proves the account, for example by its IBAN. A file with several statements, such as EUR and USD, has one account choice per statement. Supported formats are PDF, CSV, Excel, CAMT.053, MT940, and OFX, up to 50 MB.
3
Check the result
A message shows how many transactions were added, to which account, and how many were already there.
Add a transaction by hand
Use this for a cash payment, or for a payment that is missing from a statement.1
Open the form
Select Add new, then Add manually, and select Continue.
2
Enter the payment
Choose the account, Money out or Money in, the Booking date, Amount, and Currency. Payee and Description are optional. To record a cash payment, choose Cash. Billpal creates the Cash account the first time.
3
Save
Select Add transaction. The transaction opens in its details and appears under Activity.
Duplicates
Uploading the same period twice, for example once as PDF and once as CSV, does not add transactions twice. Billpal compares each transaction with the ones the account already has. A hidden transaction is not added again either. A deleted transaction comes back when you upload its statement again. A transaction you added by hand is not added again when its statement arrives. If the statement has a transaction on the same account with the same amount and currency and a date up to 3 days apart, Billpal keeps your transaction and takes the date from the statement. Your tags, documents, and edits stay. If Billpal is not sure, it adds the statement’s transaction, and you can delete the one you do not need. An imported bank fee becomes a separate transaction. The supplier payment excludes the fee, and the fee has the status No document.Account
Billpal identifies the account from the statement header: the IBAN, account number, or the card’s last four digits. They must match exactly one of your accounts. Having one account at the same bank is not enough. Only an emailed credit-card statement can add a new account on its own. If the account cannot be determined, choose an account or add one before the import continues. Until then, a notice on the Transactions page shows the waiting import. No generic account is used.- Select Choose account in the notice to pick the account. Billpal then adds the transactions.
- If you do not want to import the file, select Choose account, then Delete statement. The file is deleted. No transactions were added yet.
- A statement that waits for 7 days is deleted. If you upload the same file again, the waiting copy is replaced.
Status and type
The tabs All, Matched, Unmatched, and No document filter by status. Next to the search, All types filters by type. The account filter is in Filters when the workspace has two or more accounts.
A transaction is Matched only when its documents cover the full amount. In the same currency they must cover it to the cent. Documents in another currency may differ by up to 5%. Documents worth more than the payment also cover it. A partly covered transaction stays Unmatched and shows a line under the status, for example “Attached documents only cover €39.90 of €120.00. Please attach the missing ones.” Hover the line to read all of it.
If the rest of the amount needs no document, set No document. The matches stay and the transaction counts as Matched. No document never removes a match.
No document is a decision you make. New transactions, including the ones you add by hand, start as Unmatched.
Type is separate from status:
- Business: A business transaction.
- Private: A private transaction. An existing or manual document match is retained, but automatic matching skips it.
- Transfer: Money moving between your own accounts. Transfers have no document or category. When Billpal has paired both sides, the transaction shows the other side under Paired transaction.
Matching
Billpal matches a transaction to an invoice, receipt, or credit note when the amount fits and the date, direction, and supplier or customer fit. An amount alone is never a match. Discounts, part payments, and one payment for several documents are matched by hand. To match by hand, open the transaction and select Add document. Documents close in amount and date are listed first. You can also match a transaction from the Payment card on a document.Payment services such as Stripe
A payment service such as Stripe or PayPal collects your customer’s payment, keeps its fee, and pays out the rest to your bank. The payout on your bank statement is therefore smaller than the invoice, and matched to the invoice it covers only part of it. To match invoices at their full amount, add the service as its own account and import its balance reports there. The service is then treated like a bank account:- Each customer payment arrives at its full amount and matches the invoice.
- The fee taken from each payment becomes its own transaction with the status No document.
- The payout leaves the service’s account and arrives on your bank account. Billpal sets both as a Transfer when the amount is the same and the dates are at most 5 days apart.
1
Add the account
Under Settings > Bank accounts, select Add account, choose Bank account, and choose Stripe as Institution. Stripe has no IBAN, so leave Account numbers empty.
2
Export the reports from Stripe
In the Stripe Dashboard, download two itemized CSV reports from the Balance report for the same period: Balance change from activity (the file name starts with
Itemized_balance_change_from_activity) and Payouts (Itemized_payouts). Before you download the activity report, add the column customer_name or customer_email. Billpal only matches an invoice when the transaction and the document share a name, IBAN, or document number. Without the column, the amounts are correct but you match each invoice by hand.3
Upload both files to the Stripe account
Upload the files like any statement and choose the Stripe account. Stripe creates one report per currency. Upload the USD reports to the same account.
- Rules > Transactions, Money out
- Account is the Stripe account
- Bank text contains
fee - Status: No document
Edit a transaction
Select a row to open the transaction details. A link to a single transaction opens the same details.
Select Save to apply changes or Cancel to discard them.
Correct what the statement says
If the statement was read wrong, or you want a clearer text, select Edit transaction (the pencil next to the close button). You can change:- Payee and Description. Leave a field empty to clear it.
- Booking date and Value date. The value date can be removed.
- Amount. Use a minus sign for money out. The amount cannot be 0.
- Currency.
- The currency, or the sign of the amount, of a matched transaction. Remove the match first.
- The booking date, amount, or currency of a transfer that is paired with the transaction on your other account. Change the type first.
- A value someone else changed in the meantime. Check the new value and select Save again.
Move transactions from a statement to another account
When a transaction came from a statement, changing Account moves every transaction from that statement that is on the same account. A confirmation such as “Move all 42 transactions from kontoauszug_09.pdf to Visa •••• 1234?” appears first. Later statements with the same account number go to the new account. To move selected transactions instead, select them in the list and use Change account.Edit several transactions
Select rows in the list to change the account, status, type, category, or tags. You can also download, hide, show, or delete selected transactions. The action bar menu has Change status, Change type, and Add a tag. Change status sets Unmatched or No document. Unmatched is available only when every selected transaction is Business. No document keeps existing matches, and a partly covered transaction still shows Matched. Cash payments created from a document are left out. When every selected transaction is one, Change status is unavailable. Change type sets Business, Private, or Transfer. Transfer removes matches, clears the category, and sets the status to No document. When every selected transaction is a cash payment, Transfer can be selected, but Change type stays off. When the selection also includes other transactions, those become transfers and the cash payments stay as they are. Edit also sets the same Payee or Description on every selected transaction. An empty field stays unchanged. To clear a payee or description, edit the transaction on its own. Add a tag adds tags and keeps the ones already there.Statement files
The File name column shows the statement each transaction came from. Select the file name to preview it, then select Download to save it. The import entry under Activity opens the same preview.Hide and delete
Use Hide for payments that do not belong in Billpal, for example private payments from an account you also use for business.- Hide removes a transaction from the list, the tabs, the counts, and matching. Billpal does not suggest it for any document. Matches, type, and status stay as they are. To see hidden transactions, set Hidden to Yes under Filters. The list then shows only those transactions. Select Show to bring one back.
- Delete removes the transaction and frees its match. The document goes back to open. Upload the statement again to bring the transaction back.
Undo an import
Under Activity, the entry for an import shows how many transactions were added, with the statement file below it. When matching is done, a second entry from Billpal shows how many were matched to documents. Select the count to see only that import’s transactions. Select Undo import on the import entry to delete all transactions from that file together with the file. Matches are removed. A card account that the import added from an email is removed too, unless it was edited or is used elsewhere. Afterwards, you can upload the file again.Cash payments
A document with the payment method Cash gets a matched transaction on the Cash account, unless it matches a cash transaction you added by hand (see Add a transaction by hand). A cash transaction created from a document follows the document. Amount, date, and currency come from the document. Change them there. To remove the transaction, change the payment method or delete the document. On the transaction itself you can change:- Tags
- Type: Business or Private
- Hide transaction
Shared tags
A matched transaction and its documents show the same tags. A tag you add on the transaction also appears on the document, and the other way around. Removing a shared tag removes it from both. When a match is removed, each side keeps only the tags that were added on it.Private payments and legal form
A private transaction takes the owner’s account from your chart of accounts. Which account depends on the Legal form in the company details of the workspace:- Taxed as owner (sole trader, partnership): Owner’s draw for money out, Owner’s contribution for money in.
- Company (GmbH, Ltd, corporation): Shareholder account.
Transaction rules
Under Rules > Transactions, name the rule and choose Money out or Money in. Then add at least one condition. A transaction must match every condition.
Add at least one action. Each condition and each action can be used once per rule.
Create rule in a transaction’s menu or details starts a rule with that transaction’s direction and payee, and its account when the workspace has two or more accounts. After saving, you can apply the rule to existing transactions. Rules do not overwrite values set by hand, including a payee or description you edited.
Activity
Every change to a transaction appears under Activity, with who made it. Changes made automatically show Billpal. Changes made through ChatGPT or Claude show the person, followed by “via ChatGPT” or “via Claude”. A change to several transactions is one entry with the count.Related pages
Rules
Automate documents with rules.
Chart of accounts
Manage the accounts used for categories.