How to Reconcile Autodeposit e-Transfers for a Business

To reconcile an Interac e-Transfer received by Autodeposit, record the notification, confirm the deposit in the financial institution's own app or website, match the payer and amount to an invoice or other source document, and compare the completed amount with the bank account and customer balance. Autodeposit removes the security-question step; it does not replace the invoice, bank record, or bookkeeping entry.

Keep the email address or mobile number registered for Autodeposit tied to the receiving account in your internal records. That mapping helps explain where a payment should land when a business uses several inboxes, bank accounts, locations, or legal entities.

What Does Autodeposit Change?

Interac says Autodeposit sends an incoming transfer automatically to the account selected during registration, subject to the financial institution's routine fraud checks. The recipient does not answer a security question. Interac also says the sender can see the recipient's registered name before confirming a transfer to an Autodeposit contact.

That changes the deposit step, but not the record-keeping workflow. A business still needs to determine:

• Whether the funds actually reached the expected account
• Which customer, tenant, invoice, order, or other obligation the payment belongs to
• Whether one notification is a new payment or another message about an existing transfer
• How much remains outstanding after the payment is applied
• How the transaction should be classified for bookkeeping and tax purposes

Do not treat every Autodeposit email as sales revenue. An incoming amount could be a customer payment, deposit, owner contribution, loan, reimbursement, refund, rent payment, or personal transfer. The payment method does not decide its accounting treatment.

What Should an Autodeposit Register Include?

Create one row for each distinct transfer and keep the original notification available. Record:

• Registered Autodeposit email address or mobile number
• Intended receiving bank account or internal account label
• Displayed sender name and known customer name, when different
• Amount and currency
• Notification date and bank-deposit date
• Status and Interac reference number, when available
• Invoice, order, lease, customer account, or other source-document number
• Amount applied and remaining balance
• Category and business purpose
• Exception notes, including an unknown payer, overpayment, duplicate message, refund, or disputed amount

Avoid storing security answers, complete account numbers, or unrelated personal information in the register. Retain only the details needed to identify, reconcile, and support the transaction.

How Do You Reconcile an Autodeposit Payment?

1. Document the registration and destination

Keep a simple control list showing each business email address or mobile number registered for Autodeposit, the financial institution, the receiving-account label, the responsible business or property, and the date the mapping became effective.

Update the list when an address is moved to another account or a registration changes. Do not rewrite old payment records to use the new destination; preserve the account mapping that applied when each deposit arrived.

Use the financial institution's own registration flow. Interac's setup guidance says the user confirms the registration after signing in through a participating financial institution. An unexpected message asking you to register or change banking details should be verified through the known banking app or website, not through the message link.

2. Capture the notification without creating duplicates

Record the sender, amount, date, status, message, and reference shown in the notification. Keep one transfer row even if the inbox contains several lifecycle messages about the same transaction.

Use the Interac reference, amount, sender, registered contact, and timing to group related messages. A registration confirmation, incoming-payment notice, reminder, or status message is not automatically another deposit.

When a reference is available, follow the reference-number tracking workflow. Never merge two transfers solely because their amounts match.

3. Confirm the deposit in online banking

Open the financial institution through its known app or website and find the completed credit. Match the amount, date, and receiving account. If the notification exists but the bank credit does not, leave the item unreconciled and contact the financial institution through a trusted channel.

Autodeposit reduces manual acceptance steps, but the email remains a notification rather than independent access to the bank ledger. The proof-of-payment guide explains why notification, bank, and source records answer different questions.

4. Identify the payer and business purpose

Compare the displayed sender with open invoices, expected rent, customer balances, and recent correspondence. Keep both the banking display name and the business's customer label when they differ.

Do not guess from the sender name or amount alone. A spouse, employee, property manager, parent company, or other third party may pay on someone's behalf. Confirm an unclear relationship through contact details already on file. Use the unknown-sender workflow when the payment cannot be matched safely.

5. Apply the completed amount once

Link the bank-confirmed deposit to the invoice or other obligation. Apply only the amount received and leave any remaining balance visible.

• For one transfer covering several invoices, preserve one transaction row and add allocation lines that total the deposit.
• For several transfers covering one invoice, keep every transfer and reference separate.
• For a partial payment, reduce the customer balance only by the completed amount.
• For an overpayment, record the full deposit and create a documented credit or refund workflow rather than increasing sales.
• For a customer deposit, keep it distinct from an ordinary invoice payment until the underlying agreement and tax treatment are reviewed.

The partial-payment guide provides a more detailed allocation workflow.

6. Reconcile the register, bank, and books

At a consistent interval, compare the Autodeposit register with the receiving bank account and the accounts-receivable or rent ledger. Investigate:

• A bank credit with no matching notification record
• A notification with no completed bank credit
• Duplicate rows for one transfer
• A payment applied to the wrong customer, invoice, property, or account
• An invoice marked paid while a balance remains
• A refund, returned amount, or correction missing from the timeline

The completed payment total should agree with the relevant bank credits after documented non-business transfers, refunds, corrections, and transfers between the business's own accounts are separated.

7. Preserve an audit trail

Save the reconciled register in a readable format and keep it with invoices, receipts, agreements, bank statements, credit notes, and relevant correspondence. The Canada Revenue Agency says electronic records must remain electronically readable and show an audit trail from source documents to summarized financial accounts.

An inbox export or TransferLog export is a useful transaction index, but it does not replace the source documents. Keep the connection between each row and the records that explain the amount and business purpose.

Which Autodeposit Edge Cases Need Manual Review?

The notification does not identify the invoice

Leave the payment unmatched until the customer and purpose are confirmed. Do not close the oldest invoice automatically unless that treatment follows the customer's instructions and the business's documented policy.

The sender says the payment was made, but no deposit appears

Ask for the reference and review the bank account through the known financial-institution channel. Do not ask the customer to send a replacement until the original status is understood, or the business could receive two payments.

One contact receives payments for several business units

Use invoice prefixes, customer identifiers, property labels, or internal categories to allocate each payment. The Autodeposit address alone cannot establish the correct legal entity, location, or revenue category.

The payment or notification looks suspicious

Do not sign in through an unexpected email or text. Interac says money moves through financial institutions rather than through email, and recommends confirming the registered recipient name before a sender completes an Autodeposit transfer. Contact the financial institution directly about a suspicious or disputed transaction.

The Autodeposit destination changed

Record the effective date and reconcile payments on both sides of the change. Confirm that expected deposits reached the intended accounts, and keep the old mapping with historical records.

How TransferLog Helps With Autodeposit Records

TransferLog detects supported Interac e-Transfer notifications, including Autodeposit and manually deposited transfers, in connected Gmail, Outlook, and iCloud inboxes. You can review sent and received records, search and filter them, assign categories, and export CSV or PDF on the Pro plan.

Use TransferLog to organize the notification side of the workflow, then match the export to invoices and bank deposits. TransferLog does not register Autodeposit, access a bank account, confirm settlement, create invoices, decide tax treatment, or resolve a disputed payment.

Official Sources

• Interac: How to set up Autodeposit
• Interac e-Transfer for Business
• Interac: Protecting personal payments
• Interac e-Transfer terms of use
• CRA: Keeping records
• CRA: Electronic record keeping

Organize Autodeposit notifications with TransferLog. Start free, then reconcile the records with your customer, invoice, and bank data.