# Transfers

### How transfers work in Kick

When money moves between two accounts — checking to savings, Stripe to checking, checking to a credit card — both sides of that movement need to be linked. Otherwise, the outflow can look like an expense or uncleared transaction on one account and the inflow can look like income or an uncleared transaction on the other.

Kick uses clearing accounts to track transfers. When a transaction is categorized as a transfer, it posts to a clearing account rather than hitting the P\&L. When the other side of the transfer is matched, the clearing account nets to zero. If it doesn't net to zero, one side of the transfer is either missing or miscategorized.

This approach gives you real-time visibility into money in transit — funds that have left one account but haven't settled in another yet. The tradeoff is that unmatched transfers will carry a balance in the clearing account until both sides are present and matched.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Note:** A single real-world transfer appears as two separate transactions in Kick — one on each account. Both need to be categorized as Transfer (or Credit Card Payment) and matched to each other for the clearing account to net to zero.
{% endhint %}

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### Transfer types

What happens on the GL depends on the relationship between the two accounts involved.

**Bank to bank (same entity)** — Both sides post to Bank Transfer Clearing. When matched, the clearing account nets to zero.

**Payment processor to bank** — When a processor like Stripe or PayPal pays out to a connected bank account, both the payout and the deposit post to Payment Transfer Clearing. When matched, the clearing account nets to zero. If the bank deposit is categorized as income instead of Transfer, revenue will be double-counted between the processor and the bank account.

→ [Payment Processors](https://accountants.kick.co/setting-up/integrations/payment-processors)

**Credit card payment** — When a bank account pays a credit card, both sides post to Credit Card Clearing. The bank side records the outflow; the credit card side records the payment received. When matched, the clearing account nets to zero.

**Intercompany (cross-entity)** — When money moves [between two different entities](https://accountants.kick.co/setting-up/multi-entity), the sending entity records an Intercompany Receivable and the receiving entity records an Intercompany Payable. Kick creates these entries automatically when a cross-entity transfer is matched.

**Owner transactions** — Transfers between a [personal account](https://accountants.kick.co/bookkeeping-workflows/personal-to-business) and a business account don't use a clearing account. They post directly to equity — Distributions when money moves from business to personal, Contributions when money moves from personal to business.

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### Matching transfers

Kick automatically matches transfers when both sides are present. The matching algorithm looks for transactions with opposite amounts on different accounts within a few days of each other.

Matching runs when new transactions sync, new accounts are connected, or a transaction is manually categorized as Transfer or Credit Card Payment.

**Suggested matches** — If Kick finds a likely match but isn't fully confident, it surfaces a suggested match on the transaction. You can accept or dismiss it from the transaction detail panel.

**Manual matching** — To match a transfer yourself, select the transaction and use the Match option in the detail panel. You can also unmatch a previously matched transfer from the same panel.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Tip:** If a transaction is categorized as Transfer or Credit Card Payment but no match is found, either the other account involved needs to be connected to Kick, or the transaction's category needs to be updated.
{% endhint %}

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### Automation

Transfer Rules let you define custom conditions to automatically match transfers between specific accounts. This is useful for recurring transfers that follow a predictable pattern — like Stripe payouts landing in a specific bank account.

→ [Rules](https://accountants.kick.co/bookkeeping-workflows/rules)