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Review Bank Transactions: Connecting Your Bank and Matching Payments via Plaid

Learn how to connect your bank or credit card account via Plaid, view imported transactions, and match or create payments in PracticePanther.

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Written by Marie Burgess
Updated over 3 weeks ago

Overview

The Review Bank Transactions feature in PantherAccounting Plus allows your firm to connect bank and credit card accounts directly to PracticePanther via Plaid — a secure, industry-standard bank connectivity service. Once connected, your transactions are automatically imported so you can:

  • Match transactions to existing payments already recorded in PracticePanther

  • Create new Contact Payments, Expenses, or Firm Payments directly from a transaction

  • Review and manage your full match history for each account

Matching bank transactions with payments recorded in PracticePanther is the fastest way to streamline your end-of-month reconciliations. When transactions are properly matched:

  • Your monthly reconciliation process becomes nearly automatic

  • Previously matched transactions can be reconciled in bulk

  • Manual review and potential errors are reduced

  • Your financial records remain clean and audit-ready

Step 1: Connect Your Bank Account via Plaid

Before you can view or match transactions, you need to connect your bank or credit card account to PantherAccounting Plus using Plaid.

  1. Navigate to Accounting in the top menu and choose Banks & Credit Cards.

  2. Hover over the account you wish to connect to Plaid and click Edit.

  3. Click Connect Account with Plaid.

  4. The Plaid connection wizard will open.

  5. Enter your phone number.

  6. Search for and select your bank or financial institution.

  7. Enter your bank login credentials in Plaid's secure login screen.

  8. Review and confirm the account information that will be shared with / linked to your selected PracticePanther account (account info, balance, and transactions).

  9. Optionally, save your connection details with Plaid for faster reconnection in the future, then click Finish.

  10. Account displays with a Connected status.

💡 Tip: You can connect both bank accounts and credit card accounts. Each account is connected and managed separately.

Once connected, your transactions will begin importing into the Bank Transactions view. Choose Disconnect Account on your selected bank or credit card if you no longer want your bank transactions to be imported into PracticePanther.

Step 2: View Your Bank Transactions

Once your account is connected, you can view imported transactions and start matching them to payments in PracticePanther. Depending upon your bank, up to 180 days of transaction history may be displayed.

  1. Navigate to Accounting > Review Bank Transactions in the top menu.


  2. Use the account selector to choose the account you wish to view imported bank transactions. Your default Operating account will be selected to start.

  3. The screen is split into two panels:​

    • Left panel — Bank Transactions: Lists all transactions imported from Plaid, showing the date, merchant name, category and amount. A withdrawal or deposit label will be displayed for bank accounts or a charge or payment label for credit cards.

    • Right panel — PracticePanther Payments: Displays payments from PracticePanther that correspond to the selected bank transaction​.

    • Click on a bank transaction to view matching PracticePanther payments with the same amount. If you've selected a date range to filter by, this payments list will also filter down to the same date range.

  4. Use the Date and Amount filters to narrow down the transaction list, or change the sort order using the Sort By dropdown.

Step 3: Match a Transaction to an Existing Payment

If a payment for a transaction already exists in PracticePanther, you can link (match) them together to help streamline your monthly bank reconciliations.

  1. Click on a bank transaction in the left panel to select it. PracticePanther will automatically search for payments with a matching amount and display them in the right panel.

  2. Review the suggested payments shown in the right panel. Each suggestion displays the payment date, payment ID, payment notes, contact name, matter, and amount.

  3. Drag and drop the bank transaction from the left panel onto your desired payment in the right panel to match them. The matched transaction and payment will be removed from the lists.

💡 Tip: Click the Recent Matches button in the top-right corner to see a summary of your 5 most recently matched transactions. From here you can unmatch a transaction in case of an error or view your list of previous matched transactions.


Step 4: Create a New Payment from a Transaction

If no existing payment matches a bank transaction, you can create one directly from the Bank Transactions left panel. PracticePanther supports three types of payments:

  • Contact Payment — a payment associated with a contact (and matter)

  • Expense — a hard cost expense incurred on behalf of a matter

  • Firm Payment — a firm-level payment not tied to a contact, such as a firm operating or credit card expense

To create a new payment from a transaction:

  1. Hover or click on a bank transaction in the left panel to view the three payment options.

  2. Click one of the three quick-action buttons that appear below the transaction: Contact Payment, Expense, or Firm Payment.

  3. A payment form will open with the transaction details (amount, date, bank account, and notes) pre-filled.​

    • For Contact Payments: Complete the relevant contact payment fields.

    • For Expenses: Complete the relevant expense fields.

    • For Firm Payments: Complete the firm payment details.

  4. Click Save when done. The payment will be created in PracticePanther and automatically matched to the bank transaction. Both the bank transaction and the payment will be removed from their respective lists.

    💡 Tip: If you create a transfer, that will create two payments in PracticePanther. The payment belonging to this bank will be automatically matched. The payment created for the other half of the transfer will still be awaiting to be matched in the other bank account.

Step 5: View Match History

The Match History page gives you a full audit trail of all matched transactions for a given bank or credit card account.

  1. From the Bank Transactions page, select the account you want to review using the account dropdown.

    • Click Recent Matches to review your last five matched transactions.

    • Click View Match History to view all previous matches.

  2. The Match History table shows:

    • Matched Date — when the match was created

    • Payment — a link to the PracticePanther payment record

    • Transaction Date — the date of the bank transaction

    • Name — the merchant or transaction name from your bank

    • Amount — the transaction amount

    • Check No. and Reference No. — if applicable

  3. Use the Search bar to find matched transactions by Payment ID or name, or filter by Matched Date or Amount.

Unmatching a Transaction

If a transaction was matched incorrectly, you can undo the match at any time.

  1. Go to Match History for the relevant account.

  2. Find the match you want to remove and click Unmatch in the Actions column.

  3. The bank transaction will be returned to the unmatched Bank Transactions list, and you can re-match it as needed.

You can also unmatch from the Recent Matches view directly from the Bank Transactions page if you need to quickly unmatch a recent transaction.


Account Reconciliations

Importing and matching bank transactions to PracticePanther helps make monthly bank and credit card reconciliations faster and easier. On the Reconciliation page, matched transactions are marked with a Y in the Imported column.

  • Click Select Imported to quickly check all matched payments.

  • This speeds up reconciliation by reducing the need to manually match individual bank statement transactions.

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