For any account, a transaction either increases or decreases the account balance.  However, an increase is not always a debit or always a debit. The context determines the meaning.

 

 

Debit transactions include:

•Voided checks

•Deposits

 

Credit transactions include:

•Issued checks

•Withdrawals

 

For example, a file consisting solely of voided checks imported as general ledger data can be referred to as debit transactions, but if imported as bank data, those same transactions are credit transactions.

 

During the mapping process, you will determine what fields in the source file represent the dollar value for the transaction. These will sometimes all be positive, even when they decrease the balance. You must understand how each transaction affects the balance for that data set (bank or general ledger) in order to determine which field is the right one.  Mapping the field improperly will lead to inaccurate matching because the sign will be incorrect.