For Australian accounting firms
Statements, coded the way your firm already codes them.
Precode learns from the ledgers you have already finished, then codes new bank statements into your own chart of accounts. You review what it is not sure about.
WOOLWORTHS 1234 SYDNEY
300 Purchases
coded 41 of 41 times
XERO AU SUBSCRIPTION
485 Subscriptions
coded 12 of 12 times
BP CONNECT ARTARMON
449 Motor Vehicle
6 of 9 times — worth a look
COASTAL PLUMBING SUPPLIES
needs you
not seen before
Every line lands in one of three piles
Coded from a pattern your firm has repeated enough times to trust. Left alone unless you open it.
A suggestion with the reasoning attached, because the history behind it is thinner or split across accounts.
A merchant with no history at all. Code it once and it is recognised from next month on.
It learns from your ledgers, not from everyone's
The evidence is the work your firm has already signed off. A
supplier coded to 429 forty times is a strong pattern; one coded twice
is a suggestion, and Precode says which it is. Corrections carry more weight than
agreement, so the coding follows your firm as it changes.
Nothing is shared between firms. One firm's history never informs another's coding.
Start
Onboard a client
- Client and accounts
- Where the history comes from
- Upload it
As your firm refers to them. Only your firm sees it.
Only pays off once your firm has several clients. Skip it on the first one.
Bank accounts
Statements attach to an account, which is how a file finds its client without anything in the file naming them. Never the full account number — nothing here needs one.
Where is the coded history coming from?
This is the file it learns from. Two or more financial years is ideal — annual and quarterly payments only repeat once a year.
Upload the coded history
- DateWhen the transaction happened.
Any usual format —
31/07/2025,2025-07-31, or a real Excel date. - DescriptionThe bank’s own text for the transaction, exactly as it appears on the statement. This is what identifies the merchant, so it must be the raw wording — not a tidied-up label like “Coffee supplier”.
- AmountStatements write amounts one of two ways, and yours must use one of them: a single signed column — negative for money out, positive for money in. or a Debit and Credit pair — money out in one column, money in the other. The figures don’t need minus signs; the column they sit in is what tells us the direction. Map whichever yours has — you never need both, and a running Balance column is not an amount.
- AccountThe account each transaction was coded to. This is what it learns from, so every row needs one — and these become this client’s chart of accounts.
Column names don’t matter. Bank Reference, Narration and Particulars are all common names for Description. Once the file is loaded you’ll see what we guessed and can change any of it. Extra columns are ignored.
- In Xero, go to Reports → Account Transactions.
- Set the date range to cover as much history as you have — 24 months if possible.
- Leave it across all accounts. Do not filter it to the bank account. The report named after the bank account is the one with no account codes in it — it looks right and cannot be trained on.
- Open the column picker and tick every column. The default is 10 of the 19 available, and the ones left out include Account Type, which is what lets us clean the file up.
- Export → Excel, then drop it below.
Excel .xlsx .xls or .csv
Add an account
For a client who has opened a new bank account or credit card. Statements from it are coded against everything that client has already taught Precode, so it does not start from nothing.
What your firm calls it.
Never the full number.
Code a statement
The account this statement belongs to. Picking the wrong one teaches the wrong client's history.
Where is the statement coming from?
- DateWhen the transaction happened.
Any usual format —
31/07/2025,2025-07-31, or a real Excel date. - DescriptionThe bank’s own text, exactly as it appears on the statement. This is what identifies the merchant, so it must be the raw wording.
- AmountEither a single signed column — negative for money out. or a Debit and Credit pair — the column tells us the direction, so the figures need no minus signs. A running Balance column is not an amount.
No Account column is needed here. That is what this screen is for. If the file already has one, map it and those rows are treated as history instead. Column names don’t matter — you will see what we guessed and can change any of it.
- In Xero, go to Reports → Account Transactions.
- Set the date range to the period you want coded.
- Leave it across all accounts, and tick every column in the picker — the defaults leave out Account Type, which is what lets us clean the file up.
- Export → Excel, then drop it below.
Excel .xlsx .xls or .csv