AI in Ringbook

Ringbook's AI reads your receipts, drafts balanced journal entries, matches documents to transactions and answers questions about your books. After this page you will know where it helps, how to get a good draft the first time, and how to teach it your own booking habits.

The AI proposes and you decide. Nothing it drafts reaches your reports until you review and book it.

Where AI shows up

Every AI feature in Ringbook follows the same pattern: it does the reading and drafting, and you check the result against the source.

Manual data entry is always free. You spend AI credits only when you ask the AI to read, draft or match something. See What uses credits below.

For the bookkeeping fundamentals these features build on (rings, journals, the Shoebox, reconciliation), see the main documentation.

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Getting the best results

A clean first draft saves credits and review time. Most of the difference comes from the input you give.

Do and avoid

Photograph on a plain, light background

The background behind the receipt matters most. A receipt shot flat on a plain white or other light surface, in even light, gives the AI clean edges and text. On a cluttered desk with wood grain, other papers or hard shadows, the AI reads less reliably.

• Use a plain, light surface. A sheet of paper beats a textured or dark table.
• Fill the frame with the receipt and keep it roughly flat.
• Avoid shadows. Do not let your hand or phone cast a line across the text.
• Keep it in focus. A sharp photo of a faded receipt beats a blurry photo of a clear one.

This applies to receipts sent through WhatsApp and to drag-and-drop uploads.

Recover an incomplete generation

Read the result or recovery message before you retry. It usually says what is missing.

A new attempt may use credits, so check the price shown on the action. Retrying does not fix an unsuitable account or missing context.

Match the receipt's currency to the account

A common error: the document's currency is not one the chosen account allows. For example, you attach an HKD receipt, but the account is restricted to a different currency. Posting then fails.

There are two clean fixes:

1. Point the line at an account that accepts the document's currency, such as an HKD-capable account or a cash or expense account that is not locked to one currency.
2. Check the account's currency setting. If the account should hold more than one currency, make sure it is not restricted to one in the chart of accounts.

To book a foreign-currency receipt against a base-currency account on purpose, create a multi-currency entry. Ringbook stores the original and base amounts and can add the exchange gain or loss line. See Multi-currency and FX.

A short description helps

The AI reads both your text and the attached document. A photo alone usually gives a workable draft. A photo plus a few words gives a cleaner one, because the AI knows the context. You do not need a full sentence.

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Make rule: teach Ringbook a booking once

Some transactions repeat in the same shape every month: the same rent, the same software subscription, a marketplace payout that splits into fees and net cash. Instead of correcting the AI each time, you save how you book it once. Ringbook then follows that recipe on every similar ring.

When to make a rule

Make a rule when you correct the AI the same way more than once, or when a transaction has a split the AI cannot infer. A gross payout that must be broken into platform fees and net cash is a typical case. The more unusual your booking, the more a rule helps.

How to create one

1. Book one example the way you want it. Generate or create the journal on a ring and set the accounts, amounts, memos and any segments or sub-ledgers.
2. Open the ring's 3-dot menu and choose Make rule.
3. Check the captured example: the ring text, the attached files and the journals you booked.
4. Optionally add context. In When does this apply?, describe the rings the rule should match, for example Stripe payout emails. Under Output language, choose Auto, English, Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese.
5. Click Synthesize rule. The AI drafts a name, a match hint and plain-language instructions. It may also ask a few clarifying questions.
6. Review the draft and click Save rule.

You refer to accounts by name in the instructions. A rule is a written recipe, not code.

Refining and previewing

Before you save, you can tighten the rule:

• Rule preview runs the draft against your captured example and shows what it would book, so you can confirm it matches what you booked.
• Refine rule lets the AI tighten the instructions after you answer its clarifying questions.
• You can also edit the instructions directly.

You can edit, switch off or delete a saved rule later in Settings.

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Ring → journal rules (Settings)

Every rule from Make rule is managed in Settings → Company Policies → Ring to Journal, on the Ring → journal rules card.

Each rule in the list shows:

You can edit a rule (name, match hint, instructions), switch it on or off without deleting it, or delete it. Switch a rule off when a supplier changes its invoice format and the rule starts misfiring, then switch it back on after you fix the instructions.

When you generate a journal on a ring that matches an enabled rule, Ringbook follows that rule's accounts and structure instead of drafting from scratch. Rules make your conventions explicit, but you still review each result.

One receipt, one line by default

New companies start with a written instruction in Settings → Company Policies → Ring to Journal, in the Ring to Journal Instructions box. It tells the AI to book each point-of-sale receipt as one expense line for its total, to put the merchant and a short summary of the items in the memo, and to add one balancing credit line for how it was paid.

A HKD 312.00 restaurant receipt therefore becomes one line on Meals & Entertainment, not one line per dish. Several receipts in one Ring still give one line each. Bank statements, payroll sheets, contracts, sales invoices and supplier invoices whose lines belong to different accounts are booked as usual.

The text is yours to change. Edit it, add your own habits, or save it empty to switch it off. See Company instructions and files.

Choosing a rule for this Ring

Ringbook matches an enabled rule on its own (Automatic matching). To choose one yourself, type / at the start of a line while you write a Ring. A Choose a journal rule window opens with a Search journal rules box, Automatic matching at the top and your Saved rules below. A slash in the middle of a line is typed as normal text and does not open it.

Pick a rule and a chip with its name appears in the Ring editor. It applies to the next AI generation only, and amounts and dates still come from this Ring. Click the x on the chip to go back to automatic matching.

Manage rules at the bottom of the window opens Settings → Company Policies → Ring to Journal. You see it only if you have the right to view or edit instructions. If you have no enabled rule yet, the window tells you to use Make rule on a Ring with a booked journal.

After you change a rule, preview it against a known example, including its segments, sub-ledger, date and currency.

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The AI Companion chat

Companion is a chat assistant for questions and actions on your books. Click the speech-bubble icon in the top bar (its tooltip reads Open AI companion) to open it.

It opens as a compact window that you can drag and resize. Expand to sidebar docks it as a resizable panel, and on desktop the open sidebar becomes part of the workspace instead of covering it. Compact mode returns it to the window. The conversation menu at the top lists your chats, with search, and New chat starts a fresh one. You can rename and delete your own chats, and attach images, PDFs and spreadsheets to a message.

Each message you send uses AI credits. If your balance is too low, you are prompted to top up. See Credits.

What you can ask it

Companion can read your organization's books. Typical questions:

A new chat suggests starting points: Create a ring about..., Record a transaction for..., Find documents for... and Show recent transactions.

What it can do for you

Companion does more than answer. On request it can take these actions:

Companion has no action for deleting journals or documents. Permissions still apply: it cannot do anything your own role could not do.

When an action has a review page, Companion opens that page under the expanded sidebar. A budget update opens the Budget, a journal approval opens Book, a report request opens the dated report and an Open Items request opens the receivables or payables view. It does not ask an extra question to navigate, because navigating is reversible. When it needs you to choose, it shows buttons instead of asking you to retype.

Approval modes

Open the approval mode menu beside the chat attachment button to compare the modes. Your selection stays on for the current company until you change it.

Ask for all monthly journals together, for example: "Prepare one payroll journal for each month of 2026. Show all 12 for one approval." Companion can prepare 2–24 complete journals in a batch. Missing accounting facts must be resolved first. New accounts, segments and subledgers still need approval; when Companion proposes several at once, Approve all answers every card together, and the journal batch follows in the same reply.

A batch creates all reviewed journals together. If one journal fails validation or posting, the whole batch is rolled back. Posted results stay visible in chat, with a link to each journal when its number is available. Opening or updating a proposal in the journal window does not post it.

Approving a card does not charge a second message.

Practical Companion workflows

• "Show Book entries without supporting documents for September." Review the filtered table and attach the missing evidence.
• "Compare this quarter's P&L with last quarter and export Excel." Check the dates, report and download choices.
• "Open my marketing budget." Review the budget before you approve changes.
• "Show outstanding customer payments." Review Open Items before you apply a settlement.
• Attach an accounting workbook and ask to import it. Companion opens Book → Import journals for mapping and review.

Companion also helps with supported bulk journal and duplicate-review work. Inspect the affected records on the review screen before you approve. Opening a page or viewing a report is different from posting or deleting data.

Suggestions while you write a ring or edit a journal can reuse earlier descriptions, accounts and line details. Accept only the ones that fit this event. A prior entry is an example, not proof that the same treatment applies now.

Tips for asking

• Be specific about dates. "Last month", "Q1 2026" or an explicit range gives a sharper report than "recently".
• Name the vendor or amount when you search. It narrows results fast.
• Ask one thing at a time. A focused question gets a focused answer. Send follow-ups as separate messages.

Ask AI from a right-click menu

On any dashboard page, right-click a row, a figure or selected text and choose Ask AI about this. Companion opens with a starter message that names the page and includes the visible text of that row or selection. Nothing is sent until you press send, so you can edit the message first.

Hold Shift while you right-click to see the browser's own menu instead.

Who can see a chat

Every Companion chat is either Organisation or Private. Click the lock icon next to one of your chats in the conversation list to open Chat privacy and choose.

The conversation list has an Organisation tab and a Private chats tab. A private chat that someone shared with you appears under Organisation marked Shared with you. A shared chat shows message text only, with no attachments or action details.

Two rights under Chats in Settings → Access Rights control this. See Organization settings.

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Document matching

When a receipt or invoice reaches your Shoebox, Ringbook looks for the transaction it belongs to, so the paperwork attaches to the right journal entry without a manual search.

Open a document's preview to see the match suggestions panel. If the document is already linked, it shows the Linked Transaction with a green badge. Otherwise it lists the potential matches the AI found.

How matches are scored

Each suggestion has a confidence level and a score breakdown. Open a suggestion to see the Match Score Breakdown.

The combined score sets the label. High is 85% or more, Medium is 60% or more, and anything lower is Low.

When the document's amount is known, a journal whose amount differs by more than the amount window is dropped before scoring.

Each candidate card shows the transaction's description, date and total, plus the first accounts involved, so you can judge it at a glance.

Accepting and rejecting

• Accept links the document to that transaction.
• Reject dismisses a wrong suggestion.
• Find Matches runs matching when there are no suggestions yet. Refresh runs it again, for example after you book the matching entry.

Each run is a new AI attempt and uses credits. The button shows the price and asks you to confirm first.

Ringbook links a document automatically only when it is near-certain: either the date and the exact amount both match with the supporting evidence, or the combined score reaches 95%. It never links automatically when the amount was compared through an approximate exchange rate.

Matching runs when a document arrives, and the defaults need no setup. If a search finds nothing, the panel says what was searched and offers Search wider (±30 days). You can also widen the date window or the amount window yourself. A wider search only suggests and never links on its own, because a looser window makes scores look better than they are.

For more on documents, see the Shoebox guide.

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Bank reconciliation

Reconciliation is the heaviest AI job. You give Ringbook a bank statement. It reads every line, matches what it can against your ledger and shows what is missing, so closing the month becomes a review instead of a manual tick-and-tie.

Use a file type the upload control accepts. Check the extraction carefully, because language, scan quality and statement layout can affect it.

Open Reconciliation from the sidebar and select the account and statement. The account workspace groups its statements and lets you move between the original document, the extracted text and the related Book entries. Use the statement-period navigation and the ledger range controls to compare the same period. For the full workflow, see the reconciliation walkthrough.

Upload the statement

Click Upload, or + Upload Document in the empty state, and drop in your bank statement. Once Ringbook recognizes it as a statement, it appears in the Statement Documents list.

Extract the transactions

Open the statement to preview it. The Original tab shows the document as uploaded, so you can confirm the bank, account and period. Click Extract. The AI reads the statement and turns every line into a structured list, whatever layout the bank used.

Review and run reconciliation

The Text tab shows the result: a Statement Info header (bank, account and currency) and the full list of Extracted Transactions with date, description, amount and running balance. Opening, Incoming, Outgoing and Closing totals sit at the bottom. If the statement does not state a currency, Ringbook uses your organization's base currency.

Check the extraction before you match:

1. Confirm the Closing Balance equals the paper statement. Then check the opening balance, the incoming and outgoing totals and the individual lines, because offsetting errors can still produce the right closing balance.
2. Use Invert Signs if debits and credits came in reversed, and Edit to fix a line that was misread.

Then choose how to process the file:

Journals posted from a file keep a source link, so Reset does not draft those lines again and the journals stay available for a later bank statement. This mode does not check for duplicates elsewhere in the account. Fix any missing dates before you run it. Once a line has a posted journal, its source details, account and currency are protected. Delete that journal before you change them.

Resolve what's left

Lines that matched an existing entry are paired. Lines on the statement that are not in your books are grouped under Missing from ledger and tagged Bank Only. For each one, click + Add. Ringbook drafts the journal and proposes the other side, since the bank side is already known. Check that account, then post.

You can also match a line by hand to an entry worded differently, or skip it with a note, for example a transfer already booked on the other side.

When nothing is left unexplained, the header changes to Completed and the Net difference reads HK$0.00: your books agree with the bank. You can use Reset to re-run at any time to start the matching again.

The same workflow handles several accounts in one PDF, foreign-currency accounts and personal cards used for company spend. See Bank reconciliation in the documentation.

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Tell us what you think

A wrong journal, a match that missed, a confusing screen or a missing feature: we want to hear it. AI features improve most when we learn where they fall short.

Open Report issue / feedback from the user menu in the top-right, or from More in the bottom bar on mobile. The form is titled Report an issue or send feedback. Pick a category and write a message:

The form includes the page you were on and some technical context, so you do not need to describe your setup. Say what you were doing, what you expected and what happened. One sentence is enough.

You can also write to samyip@ringbook.io.

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Company memory, policies and usage

Three kinds of guidance

Memory can hold policies, counterparty notes, related parties and tax-profile facts. Review a fact before you rely on it. People with the right permission can add or edit facts, retire outdated ones or delete them, and editing keeps a version history.

The composer-suggestion switch is local to your device. Turning it off does not delete stored facts or switch off Memory or Companion. Automatic learning may not be enabled for your organization, so do not assume every ring becomes a memory or every correction retrains the AI.

Company settings are covered in Organization settings.

Company instructions and files

Settings → Company Policies has four areas: Memory, Bank Reconciliation, Ring to Journal and Companion Chat. The last three each have a text box where you write standing instructions in plain language. The AI reads them every time it works in that area, so you describe a habit once instead of correcting it every time.

Click Save Instructions to apply a change. Undo and redo work while you type, and earlier saved versions are listed in the version history below the box. A Default prompt viewer shows the base prompt your text is added to.

Company Files (inside Memory) hold longer policy documents. Give a file a name and paste or type its Markdown. Ringbook summarises it when you save, and the summary is what the AI receives.

You need the right View instructions & company files to open Company Policies and Edit instructions & company files to change anything. Without the edit right the boxes are read-only.

Working with memories

Open Settings → Company Policies → Memory. Learned Memories lists the facts, and you can filter by type or choose All types.

• Add memory records a fact by hand. Each fact shows whether the AI or a person created it, its confidence, how often it was observed and its source Rings.
• Edit saves a new version and keeps the old one. History lists every version, newest first, marked Current or Superseded.
• Retire marks an outdated fact as retired and hides it unless you switch on Show retired.
• Delete removes the fact and its whole history. This cannot be undone.

When you write a Ring, a stored fact can show a hint banner above it: an amount over a policy limit, a counterparty on credit hold, or a related party. The hint is advice and blocks nothing. Dismiss it and Ringbook shows that hint less often.

Matching with evidence

When you review a document match, compare the date, amount, currency and journal lines. Due dates and foreign or base amounts help find candidates, but they do not make a suggestion certain. If the expected journal is outside the first search, use the date window or Search wider. A wider search produces suggestions for review. Running or refreshing matches can use credits, as the action shows.

Rating a result

Use the feedback control on supported AI journal results, other AI results or Companion conversations to rate the result and add a comment. You can choose whether to share the visible result or conversation text with Ringbook's review team. That option may be selected by default, so clear it if you do not want to share. This feedback is separate from editing or posting the journal and from the general Report issue / feedback form.

What uses credits

Credits pay for AI work only. These are the amounts charged today:

These do not use credits: manual data entry, reviewing and booking a draft, reading reports, and extracting a statement that is a spreadsheet. If a generation fails, the charge goes back to the wallet that paid. An AI document search that finds nothing is refunded too.

Prices on the action and the pricing page always take precedence over the figures here.

Who pays for AI

Your organization's credits pay for the team's eligible AI actions. When organization credits run out, your personal credits cover the shortfall. This is on by default and you can turn it off with Use personal credits when org runs out in your profile. Check the profile and organization usage views to see your actions and charges. Manual review and entry never need an AI generation. To buy credits and track what you have spent, see Credits.