What "Cleared status" is
Every transaction in BitBooks has two statuses:
- Status (Complete, Incomplete, Pending, Failed, Reversed): the lifecycle of the transaction itself
- Cleared status (Not Cleared, Cleared, Reconciled): how confirmed and verified it is at the wallet/bank level
This article is about cleared status. It tracks how "real" a transaction is from the perspective of the wallet provider.
The three values
Not cleared
The transaction is recorded in BitBooks, but hasn't been confirmed as settled at the wallet provider yet.
Common cases:
- An on-chain Bitcoin transaction that's still waiting for confirmations
- A check you wrote that hasn't been cashed yet
- A pending wire that hasn't arrived
- A Lightning payment that's in-flight (rare, usually settles in seconds)
The transaction shows up in your books and counts toward balances. It just hasn't been "cleared" by the wallet provider yet.
Cleared
Confirmed by the wallet provider as settled. The money has actually arrived or actually left.
Common cases:
- An on-chain Bitcoin transaction with sufficient confirmations
- A check that has been cashed
- A wire that has settled
- An exchange trade that has executed
Cleared transactions are real. Your books and the wallet's records agree on this transaction's existence.
Reconciled
Cleared AND you've gone through a formal reconciliation pass and matched this transaction against the wallet's statement.
This is the gold standard. A reconciled transaction has been:
- Verified to exist
- Verified for amount accuracy
- Verified for date accuracy
- Matched against the wallet provider's record
- Locked from casual editing
Most transactions become Reconciled at month-end during the reconciliation workflow.
How status changes happen
From Not Cleared to Cleared
For auto-synced wallets, this happens automatically when the wallet provider confirms the transaction. The auto-sync picks up the new state and updates the cleared status.
For manually-tracked wallets, you change it yourself. Open the transaction, change Cleared status from Not Cleared to Cleared, save.
From Cleared to Reconciled
Through the reconciliation workflow. Open the wallet's reconcile screen, tick transactions to mark them as reconciled, save. See Reconciling a Bitcoin Wallet and Reconciling a Fiat Bank Account.
Going backwards
Reconciled to Cleared, or Cleared to Not Cleared, requires explicit action. Don't do this casually; if you un-reconcile transactions, you're breaking the chain of verification and will need to re-reconcile.
If you reconciled a transaction by mistake (and it shouldn't have been), un-reconcile is allowed but flagged in the audit log.
What reports do with each status
- Reports default to including all Posted transactions regardless of cleared status. Your P&L includes Not Cleared, Cleared, and Reconciled.
- Some specialized views (Reconciliation reports, etc.) filter by cleared status. The Bank Reconciliation report, for example, shows only the cleared/reconciled balance.
- The Insights page shows total balances (which include Not Cleared). This matches what your wallet provider's "balance" usually shows, including pending stuff.
How status interacts with editing
| Status | Can edit amount? | Can edit date? | Can edit accounts? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not cleared | If Draft, yes. If Posted, no. | Same | Same |
| Cleared | Same as Posted (mostly locked) | Same | Same |
| Reconciled | No, even if you'd otherwise have edit rights | No | No |
Reconciled transactions are extra-locked. The reconciliation chain is meaningful; changing a reconciled entry would break the wallet's verified balance at that point.
If you absolutely need to change a reconciled entry, you must un-reconcile first (which warns you and logs it), then make the change, then re-reconcile.
Confirmation status for Bitcoin
Bitcoin transactions have a granular confirmation count beyond just "cleared":
- 0 confirmations: broadcast but not yet in a block. Risky; could theoretically be replaced.
- 1 confirmation: in the next block. Generally accepted for small amounts.
- 2-5 confirmations: progressively more secure
- 6+ confirmations: considered final by most exchanges and standards
BitBooks treats anything with at least 1 confirmation as Cleared by default. You can adjust at the org level if you want a stricter standard (require 6+ confirmations before Cleared).
For Lightning, settlement is binary: either the payment settled (Cleared) or it's still in-flight (Not Cleared). There's no confirmation count.
A worked example
A coffee customer pays you 5,000 sats via Lightning. The payment settles in 2 seconds.
- BitBooks records the transaction
- Auto-sync picks it up almost immediately
- It lands as a Posted transaction with cleared status Cleared
A different customer pays you 0.05 BTC on-chain.
- The transaction is broadcast but pending
- Auto-sync sees it and creates a Draft with status Pending, cleared status Not Cleared
- 30 minutes later, after 3 confirmations, auto-sync updates it to Cleared
At month-end, you reconcile both:
- You match the 5,000-sat Lightning sale against your Blink statement: ticked, Reconciled
- You match the 0.05 BTC on-chain receive against the blockchain: ticked, Reconciled
Now both are part of your verified history.
Common questions
"How long does it take a wallet to mark a transaction Cleared?"
Lightning: seconds. On-chain: ~10 minutes per confirmation, default to 1-3 confirmations for most BitBooks setups. Bank wires: hours to a day. Checks: until cashed.
"What if my wallet provider never marks a transaction Cleared?"
If a transaction has been pending for an unreasonable time (an on-chain transaction stuck for days, a wire that didn't show up), investigate at the provider. If the provider says it failed, mark the transaction as Failed (or reverse). Don't just leave it as Not Cleared forever; that pollutes your reconciliation.
"Can I have a reconciled transaction with cleared status Not Cleared?"
No. Reconciled implies Cleared. The reconciliation workflow won't let you mark Not Cleared transactions as Reconciled.
Where to go next
- What is Bank Reconciliation? for the broader concept
- Reconciling a Bitcoin Wallet for the Bitcoin reconciliation walkthrough
- Reconciling a Fiat Bank Account for the bank version
- Finding and Fixing Discrepancies for troubleshooting reconciliation issues