Reconciliation is the process of making sure two sets of financial records match. In this case, that what happened in Lessn is accurately reflected in Xero, and the Xero matches your actual bank transactions.
What Lessn Does Automatically
When you pay a bill in Lessn, two things happen in Xero automatically (provided Push Updates is enables and a card is linked to Xero)
The bill in Xero is marked as paid, you don't need to log in to Xero and update this manually
The payment is booked against the Lessn Clearing Account (9999), not directly against your bank account.
If Card Entries is enables, Lessn also writes a bank transaction to Xero against the linked card account. That transaction has two line items: the payment amount recorded against the Lessn Clearing Account (9999), and the Lessn processing fee recorded against the Lessn Fees Account (9998).
What is the Clearing Account?
The clearing account (9999) is a temporary holding account used as an intermediary between bill payments in Lessn and your actual bank transactions. Rather than recording a payment directly against your bank account, Lessn books it here first, keeping your books clean and making reconciliation straightforward.
Your bank account in Xero is driven by your bank feed, real transactions that have physically left your account. Recording a payment against the bank before it appears in the feed creates a mismatch. The clearing account acts as a buffer: Lessn books the payment immediately and you match it to the bank feed entry once it arrives.
How to Reconcile in Xero
Once Lessn has recorded the payment, the final step takes place in Xero. The exact process will depend on how your bank feed is set up, but the general flow is:
In Xero, got to Accounting -> Bank Accounts and select the account used for the payment
Xero will show you unreconciled bank feed lines. Find the transaction that matches the payment made in Lessn
Match it to the corresponding entry in the Lessn Clearing Account (9999). Xero will suggest matches automatically in most cases
Once matched, Xero confirms the reconciliation and the clearing account balance reduces accordingly