Bank reconciliation

Adra Match can help you with automatic matching in several areas of bank reconciliation, such as traditional bank reconciliation and reconciliation of foreign currency accounts, direct payments, cash, card terminals (Visa, MasterCard, Eurocard), Bankgiro and Plusgiro. Automatic reconciliation simplifies your work processes, making them both faster and more accurate.

Automatic reconciliation of bank accounts

A fully automatic reconciliation process, at any time during an accounting period
Personnel independent – delegated responsibility
Final account specifications
All reconciliation history recorded
A uniform approach irrespective of number of companies, banks, business and accounts

Technology replaces manual work

Adra Match Accounts replaces the manual steps in the reconciliation process with technology. Thanks to technology, a consistent, effective reconciliation process for all accounts to be reconciled is also created.

The system keeps track of what has been reconciled and which items are open, regardless of when reconciliation is performed. Reconciliation can be performed by anyone at any time during the account period – and not only in connection with monthly, quarterly and annual reports, as time is often short.

Bank reconciliation – a company’s most important reconciliation process

Bank reconciliation is a company’s most important reconciliation process. It can differ, depending on activity. Many continue to reconcile their bank accounts by printing out statements. With the help of a pocket calculator and pencil, they go through all entries in the account to see which are open. Others use Excel as a tool, to eliminate the items which match through summaries and macros.

The efficiency and accuracy of manual reconciliation depend entirely on the person performing it. When reconciliation is complete, all balances in the ledger and bank, plus any differences have to be reported. This is often done in an external system outside the accounts system in spreadsheets, where reconciliation results can then be manually transferred into the accounts.

Manual procedure:

Personnel-dependent
Inefficient and time-consuming
No history or opportunity to look back
Many manual steps make the process unsafe
All steps must be implemented for all accounts and by all personnel involved

Invoice flow – matching many to one

Different businesses have different types of flows in their bank accounts. Flow characteristics are determined by business and customer characteristics. The different ways customers pay also generate various types of reconciliations. Here are some common types of bank flows.  

Plusgiro and Bankgiro

Most Swedish invoice flows go via Plusgiro and Bankgiro. The management of customer and supplier payments is handled automatically via the file loading to customer and bought ledger which are then reconciled. Bankgiro and Postgiro are then entered in one or more lump sums for each clearing event. A lump sum is also taken out for all outgoing payments. The bank flow becomes significantly less than each individual transaction. In addition to these deposits, there are manual payments in and out.

However, it has become more common that the general ledger 19(XX) in the accounts system is filled with more detailed information than the bank. Many transactions from the ledger have to be matched against a lump sum at the bank, making reconciliation more complex to manage.  

Cash

Cash often gives rise to very time-consuming reconciliation work, because there are so many transactions. Many items from multiple cost centres hit your bank statement every day. The daily takings system reports to the accounts system daily, but in many cases, 2-14 days can pass before the money is actually deposited into the bank. This makes it particularly difficult to keep track of which cost centres and which day’s sales money has been received for.

Another way to handle reconciliation is to open one bank account per cost centre, thus facilitating the management of transactions. This is also time-consuming and expensive, because the numerous accounts in the chart of accounts complicate the administrative work. Reconciliation is still just as extensive, but now it is also spread over several bank accounts. Often, several people involved in the reconciliation process – each doing it their own way.

Adra Match gives you:

Reconciliation at detailed level without recording all credit card transactions
Card fee per cost centre directly from the system
Control per cost centre of which card transactions have not entered the bank
Personnel-dependent – delegated responsibility
Completed reports for the monthly account
Control of IP, OP and differences for each month

Debit and credit cards

Card terminals create – as do daily receipts – time-consuming reconciliation work, because of the many transactions. Once again, there are lots of items from multiple cost centre accounts every day. The cards used at the point of sale can be divided into two different categories. Common debit cards such as Visa, MasterCard and Eurocard, or credit cards with external redeemers such as American Express and Diners Club.

Adra Match gives you:

Automatic matching of transactions which match
Automatic control of the funds received at the bank per cost centre
Personnel-dependent – delegated responsibility
Completed reports for the monthly account
Control of IP, OP and differences for each month

Debit cards

Daily sales that take place via common debit cards will be credited to your bank account a few days after the outlet closes its daily trading on the terminal. The sum comes in as the gross amount and the redeemer’s charges are billed retrospectively. Reconciliation is relatively simple to implement, but is complicated by the large volume of transactions.

Credit card

Credit cards show on an account statement as an item for all registered purchases in a lump sum with fees deducted. You cannot see what you are being paid for from the bank account statement. That’s why payments from external redeemers almost always end up in the settlement account for accounting purposes. The settlement account is debited manually daily, based on information from the BGC. Either via the bgmax file or paper statements.

Currency accounts

The currency account is usually managed in the same way as ordinary bank accounts. The difference is that the amounts in the accounting system are booked in the accounting currency and not in the actual currency. A bank account statement therefore shows all amounts in Euros, while the accounts show the amounts in USD. You either need an accounting system which can convert the Euro amount to USD during bookkeeping using a flat monthly rate or daily rate. Alternatively, the USD amount is calculated when doing the bookkeeping.

Adra Match gives you:

Automatic reconciliation of currency amount
Balance in currency amount, accounting amount and at the closing rate
Completed reports for the monthly account
Control of IP, OP and differences for each month

Most financial systems have a currency field in which the original amount is entered. When reconciliation is performed, it uses this amount. It is calculated either based on the fixed monthly rate or on the currency field in the accounting system. This avoids having to write off differences, such as a currency difference, without being completely sure what the difference entails. It also makes it easy to quickly get the actual value of the accounting currency at monthly accounting rate and thus indicate how much liquidity has to be written up or down.

Direct payments

All customers have to make direct payments through their own bank. As beneficiary, you have to open an account for each bank, which gives rise to many accounts in different banks. Any direct payment is a transaction on your statement with a unique ID. Direct payments can cause the Accounts Department to be flooded with multi-page statements from a variety of banks. The reconciliation itself is relatively simple, but very transaction-intensive.