Who is this article for?
This article is for practices that use Interac payment automation and want to understand how Colib links each e-Transfer received to a client and an invoice.
Before you start: the automation must be turned on and your Interac emails forwarded to Colib: see How to set up Interac payment automation.
When does the matching happen?
Payment reconciliations occur several times per day (around 7:15 AM, 12:15 PM, 3:40 PM and 8:00 PM, Pacific time). Each time, Colib pulls the new Interac e-Transfer notifications and applies the rules below. It also tries again to match the payments received earlier that are still waiting for their client or their invoice (please see the article titled "What happens when an Interac payment arrives before the invoice or the client is created?").
The matching rules
| Rule | What Colib does |
|---|---|
| Finding the client | The sender's name is compared with the first and last name of your active clients (upper case, accents and hyphens do not matter), or with the Interac name remembered from a previous manual match. |
| Invoices considered | Invoices of that client that are not paid, cancelled or draft, dated within the last 6 months, and whose balance is at least the amount received. If the client is the person responsible for a group of clients (a family, for example), the invoices of every member of the group are considered. |
| Choosing the invoice | First, an invoice whose balance is exactly the amount received. Otherwise, an invoice already partially paid by e-Transfer. Otherwise, the first invoice found. |
| Amount equal to the balance | The invoice becomes Paid, with the e-Transfer as payment method. |
| Amount lower than the balance | The invoice becomes Partially paid and the remaining balance is updated. A next transfer from the same client completes it. |
| Amount higher than every balance | No invoice is matched: the payment stays with the status Client found and you are notified. Match it by hand (one payment can only pay one invoice). |
| Reference and message | The Interac reference and the sender's message are displayed in the Details column, but they are not used for the matching. |
| Currency | Interac e-Transfers are in Canadian dollars: use them for invoices in CAD. A manual match is only possible with an invoice in CAD. |
Invoices that are never matched automatically
- Invoices addressed to a third-party payer — an invoice sent to an insurer or another payer is never matched with an e-Transfer automatically.
- Invoices paid by card — invoices created by online booking or by the purchase of a gift certificate are paid by card and are not matched with an e-Transfer.
- Invoices for which you refused the match — when Do not match these Interac e-Transfers with this invoice is turned on in the invoice (please see the article titled "What happens when an Interac payment arrives before the invoice or the client is created?").
- Invoices in draft, paid or cancelled, in another currency than CAD, or dated more than 6 months ago.
Good to know
- One payment, one invoice — a transfer pays only one invoice. On the other hand, several transfers of the same client can pay the same invoice, until its balance is reached.
- Fully paid invoice — when the transfers cover the whole balance, the invoice becomes Paid and turns into a receipt.
- Help the matching — ask your clients to send their transfers under the name of their client record, and create the invoice as soon as possible. When a name does not match, a manual match teaches Colib the name used for Interac.
Related articles
- How to set up Interac payment automation
- Please see the article titled "What happens when an Interac payment arrives before the invoice or the client is created?"
- Please see the article titled "How to follow and match Interac payments by hand".
- Please see the article titled "What happens after an Interac payment is matched?"
- Gmail / Google Workspace: How to automatically forward Interac notification emails in Gmail?
- Outlook / Microsoft 365: How to automatically forward Interac notification emails in Outlook / Microsoft 365?
Still have a question?
Write to us at support@colib.io, we will be happy to help.
Was this article helpful?
That’s Great!
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry! We couldn't be helpful
Thank you for your feedback
Feedback sent
We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article