Our new AI-powered contact predictions have arrived

We recently announced at Xerocon Sydney that our team was busy enhancing the AI algorithms that power bank reconciliation in Xero, so it would recognise new contacts in your statement lines (even when they’re not in your contact list).

We’re excited to share that this new feature is now live and available to all Xero customers globally. Here’s how it works and how to recognise it when it appears in your bank reconciliation.

How new contact predictions work

Our predictions use Xero’s business register to identify business names in your statement lines, based on millions of past data points across Xero. So when we see names like ‘Amazon’, ‘Transport for London’ or ‘Officeworks’, we can be pretty sure they are legitimate businesses.

If you’re trying to reconcile this statement line but don’t have these business names in your contact list, Xero will suggest these as new contacts, saving you precious time.

The business register is really picky about accuracy, so it only recognises exact business names. For example, it won’t validate a misspelled name like ‘Amarzone’. This ensures our business register only contains genuine entities, and helps us avoid suggesting incorrect business names as new contacts.

How to recognise new contact predictions in Xero

You’re probably already familiar with our existing bank reconciliation predictions, where we display existing contact and account codes in italics. The new contact predictions will also be in italics, but will display a ‘NEW’ tag in the contact field for both spend and receive (cash) transactions.

They won’t show up every time (the business register currently focuses on larger businesses to stay as accurate as possible) but the ones that do will make it easier for you to complete your bank reconciliation and get on with your day.

Supercharging your bank reconciliation with AI

AI already powers a range of products across Xero, and we’re continuing to enhance our algorithms to help you streamline time-consuming, manual processes and deliver the right insight at the right time. This new feature is another step on this journey, and we can’t wait to hear what you think. You can share your feedback and product ideas over at  Xero Product Ideas.