One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we hear from Australian bookkeepers joining ReconLink is this: they didn't realise how much time they were losing to manual transaction imports until they stopped doing them. Downloading CSV files from banking portals, checking export date ranges, handling duplicates from overlapping imports, re-uploading — these tasks add up to hours every month across a client portfolio. Bank feed sync eliminates them.
This post explains exactly how ReconLink's automatic bank feed integration works, what happens under the hood, and how to configure it to match your practice's reconciliation workflow.
How Bank Feeds Work in Australia
ReconLink uses Basiq, Australia's leading Consumer Data Right (CDR) bank feed provider, to connect to over 130 Australian financial institutions — including the Big Four, regional banks, credit unions, and most major business banking providers.
Under the CDR framework, your client gives consent for their bank data to be shared with Basiq, which then makes the transaction data available to ReconLink via a secure API. This is different from screen-scraping (which some older tools used) — CDR feeds are formally authorised, encrypted, and governed by the Australian CDR Rules administered by the ACCC and the ATO.
The consent flow works like this:
- You add a new bank account in ReconLink and invite the client to authorise the feed
- The client clicks the authorisation link (emailed to their registered address), selects their bank, and completes their bank's standard authentication
- Basiq establishes the feed and begins syncing historical transactions (up to 12 months of history is retrieved on first connection)
- ReconLink runs its initial import and presents the transactions in the reconciliation queue
The whole process typically takes 3–5 minutes for the client. Once authorised, the feed runs automatically — no further action required from you or the client to keep it current.
What Gets Synced and How Often
ReconLink syncs each connected bank feed approximately every 4–6 hours during business hours, and once overnight. For most bookkeepers, this means that by the time you sit down to work on a client's reconciliation, the feed is current to within a few hours.
For each transaction, ReconLink retrieves:
- Transaction date and processing date (some banks report these separately)
- Amount (credit or debit)
- Description — the raw transaction narrative from the bank (e.g., "ONLINE TRANSFER TO ACME SUPPLIERS PTY LTD")
- Balance at the time of the transaction
- Transaction ID — the bank's internal reference, used for deduplication
The deduplication logic is worth understanding. Because ReconLink syncs feeds regularly, it's possible to retrieve the same transaction multiple times — for example, if a transaction was pending when first synced and later settled with a slightly different description. ReconLink uses the bank's transaction ID combined with amount and date to detect and discard duplicates before they reach your queue. You'll never see the same transaction twice.
Auto-Coding: Where the Time Saving Really Comes From
Getting transactions into ReconLink is only the first step. The real efficiency gain comes from the coding engine that processes incoming transactions automatically.
ReconLink applies a three-layer coding process to every incoming transaction:
Layer 1 — Deterministic rules: Practice-defined rules based on vendor name patterns. If you've previously set a rule that any transaction matching "OFFICEWORKS" should be coded to "6-2300 Office Supplies" with a GST code of "GST", that rule fires automatically on every matching transaction. Rules are created once and apply to all clients in your practice.
Layer 2 — ML pattern matching: For transactions that don't match an existing rule, ReconLink's pattern-matching model looks at vendor characteristics and prior codings across your client portfolio to suggest the most likely code.
Layer 3 — AI-assisted coding: For vendors the ML model hasn't seen before, ReconLink uses an LLM to analyse the transaction description and suggest a code with a confidence score. Suggestions with high confidence are presented clearly; lower-confidence suggestions are flagged for your review.
The result: when a client's bank feed syncs overnight, most of their transactions may already be coded and ready to confirm by the time you open the dashboard in the morning. For clients with predictable, recurring expenditure patterns — which describes most small businesses — Layer 1 rules alone often handle 80%+ of transactions.
Setting Up Your First Bank Feed
To connect a client's first bank account:
- In the ReconLink dashboard, navigate to the client's profile and select Bank Accounts
- Click Add Account and enter the account name and BSB/account number
- Toggle Enable automatic bank feed and enter the client's email address for the consent request
- Click Send authorisation request
The client receives an email with a personalised link. When they complete the authorisation, ReconLink displays the account as "Connected" and begins the initial sync. You can monitor the sync status from the Bank Accounts screen.
For clients who prefer to send their bank statements by email (for example, if they bank with a smaller institution not yet connected via CDR), ReconLink also supports statement ingestion by email — the client forwards their bank's statement email to their unique ReconLink inbox address, and the PDF or CSV attachment is parsed and imported automatically.
Managing Multiple Entities and Accounts
Most bookkeeping practices have clients with multiple bank accounts — a trading account, a tax liability savings account, a credit card. ReconLink handles each account as a separate feed. Transactions from all connected accounts for a client appear in a unified reconciliation queue, organised by account, so you can work through them efficiently.
For clients with multiple entities (e.g., a company and a trust, or a business with separate entities for different ventures), each entity has its own ReconLink client profile with its own bank feeds and coding rules. Practice-level rules that apply across all clients — common vendor patterns for utilities, ATO payments, subscription services — flow down to all client profiles automatically.
Summary
ReconLink's bank feed integration removes the most repetitive parts of the reconciliation workflow — manual imports, duplicate management, and coding common transactions from scratch. With Basiq CDR feeds running automatically in the background and the three-layer coding engine processing transactions as they arrive, the time you spend on reconciliation shifts from data entry to review, exception handling, and the higher-value advisory conversations that only a human can have. For most bookkeepers, connecting a client's bank feeds is the single highest-return configuration step in their ReconLink setup.