Reconciliation in Accounting Overview & Examples

There are many different types of reconciliations that can be performed in accounting. Some of the most common types include bank reconciliations, credit card reconciliations, and inventory reconciliations. This is when amounts on source documents are compared to amounts on company records. Account reconciliations are an important step to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the financial statements.

Adding to the challenge, some transactions may be split on one side but not the other. Once you have a solid starting point, look at the reconciling items in last period’s ending balances. Before we get into the account reconciliation process, let’s back up and think about the who, what, and when of the reconciliation workflow. Account reconciliation is an important internal control in the financial reporting process. Public companies are required to perform these steps as part of their financial close. However, generally accepted accounting principles require double-entry accounting—where a transaction is entered into the general ledger in two places—and is the most prevalent tool for reconciliation.

The analytics review approach can also reveal fraudulent activity or balance sheet errors. In this case, businesses estimate the amount that should be in the accounts based on previous account activity levels. Using the double-entry accounting system, he credits cash for 20,000 ZAR and debits his assets by the same amount. For his first job, he credits 5000 ZAR in revenue and debits an equal amount for accounts receivable.

What Is the Reconciliation Process in Accounting?

We refer to them as bank, vendor, customer, business-specific, and intercompany reconciliation. Learn accounting fundamentals and how to read financial statements with CFI’s free online accounting classes. For example, Company XYZ is an investment fund that acquires at least three to five start-up companies each year. For the current year, the company estimates that annual revenue will be $100 million, based on its historical account activity.

When she’s not writing, Barbara likes to research public companies and play social games including Texas hold ‘em poker, bridge, and Mah Jongg. The prior month’s journal entry accruals need to be reversed to prevent a discrepancy. In many companies, often a holiday period is given to customers during which the amounts due can be accrued as a liability.

No matter how diligent the reconciliation meaning in accountinging team is, sometimes a transaction just slips through the cracks. Accounting is the process of recording, summarizing, and reporting financial transactions to oversight agencies, regulators, and the IRS. Not producing a reconciliation report when one is needed will also make it more time consuming to produce future reconciliations, due to it being harder to unpick the differences.

Without reconciling, companies may pay too much or too little in taxes. To successfully complete your bank reconciliation, you’ll need your bank statements for the current and previous months as well as your company ledger. Many templates available online can help guide you, but a simple spreadsheet is just as effective. Many companies have systems for maintaining payment receipts, account statements, and other data necessary to document and support account reconciliations. The trial balance that lists and totals general ledger account balances should have equal debit and credit totals to reflect double-entry accounting and posting of all accounts to the general ledger. Recording inventory transactions may lag, requiring accruals through a cut-off date after month-end.

Thus, such reconciliation of bank statements can be carried out on a weekly, monthly, bi-annual or annual basis as desired by the business or deemed necessary by it. A reconciliation is a crucial process for businesses of all sizes to maintain accurate financial records. Common account reconciliation differences are timing differences in recording to the general ledger, outstanding and missing transactions, and transaction errors. Balance sheet accounts with subsidiary ledgers (sub-ledgers) include accounts receivable, inventory, fixed assets, and accounts payable. Reconcile general ledger accounts to sub-ledgers or create a schedule of underlying transactions and list discrepancies by item . The reconciliation spreadsheet should be carried forward from month to month for each yearly accounting period.

Depending on the account type, you may also require additional details presenting the whole activities executed on the account. These activities include details of debit and credit transactions in the account. Account reconciliation aims to take care of inconsistencies in accounting records, with these inconsistencies undoubtedly caused by certain factors. One other use of account reconciliation is a company’s need to maintain an internal control environment that complies with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In this way, fraudulent tampering of accounting records is reduced as it becomes harder to achieve without leaving traces.

Historically, reconciliation accounting was a relatively manual process, with the reconciliations themselves taking place in an Excel spreadsheet or on physical pieces of paper. However,cloud accountingsoftware has made this a much more efficient process by the adoption of automation features, ensuring that matching transactions is hassle-free. Account reconciliation software removes the burden of manually performing the task of comparing different account statements.

Lucky for JoAnn there are software programs available that will organize and systematically guide her through the reconciliation process. JoAnn is evaluating them for Big Box now and hopes they will have one soon. Big Box has written some checks and made some nightly deposits since the bank statement was issued. When the bank statement is adjusted for those, most of the difference is usually accounted for. Read this blogto learn more about how your organization can improve the account reconciliation process.

Why Is Reconciliation Important in Accounting?

While the entries in the general ledger are based on the facts of the moment, they may not always be accurate. When you receive a check from a customer, you may have recorded it as paid. But there are chances that the check could have bounced due to numerous reasons. Or the payment you made to supplier A went into the accounts of supplier B due to a clerical error.

• BlackLine partners with top global Business Process Outsourcers and equips them with solutions to better serve their clients and achieve market-leading automation, efficiencies, and risk control.
• It takes in data from various sources of financial information, such asERP systems, bank files or statements, credit card processors, and merchant services.
• Expense reporting is a form that tracks and accounts for business spending.
• First, there are some obvious reasons why there might be discrepancies in your account.

These processes demonstrate a company’s focus on accuracy and thoroughness. When a parent company has several subsidiaries, the process helps identify assets. It will look for mismatches within and between any 2 or more subsidiaries. These may be the result of billing mistakes related to loans, deposits, and payment processing activities.

What Is Reconciliation?

But at the very least, cash, bank loan, and credit card accounts should be reconciled regularly. Companies with multiple entities will need to reconcile intercompany transactions as part of the consolidation process. Fortunately, today’s accountants have the advantage of automation and reconciliation tools like account reconciliation software that can make short work of the time-consuming chore of transaction matching.

It allows businesses to prove their accounting balance and transactions are correct. On the bank statement, compare the company’s list of issued checks and deposits to the checks shown on the statement to identify uncleared checks and deposits in transit. Nowadays, many companies use specialized accounting software in bank reconciliation to reduce the amount of work and adjustments required and to enable real-time updates. After all adjustments, the balance on a bank reconciliation statement should equal the ending balance of the bank account. During the reconciliation process, corrections may be made to the general ledger with adjusting journal entries.

If any transaction has been missed in the records of either of the companies, that can be recorded too. Interest is automatically deposited into a bank account after a certain period of time. Thus, the accountant may need to prepare an entry that increases the cash currently shown in the financial records.

Bank errors don’t occur very often, but if they do, the proper amount needs to be added or subtracted from your account balance, and you should contact the bank immediately to report the error. Account reconciliation can help spot errors, fraud, theft, or other negative activity, which can save you money and keep you out of legal trouble in the long run. Peggy James is an expert in accounting, corporate finance, and personal finance. She is a certified public accountant who owns her own accounting firm, where she serves small businesses, nonprofits, solopreneurs, freelancers, and individuals.

An outstanding check draws on the funds in an individual’s or business’ bank account but has not yet been cashed or deposited by the payee. Bank reconciliation helps to identify errors that can affect tax and financial reporting. Using a schedule of general ledger accounts, analyze capital accounts by transaction for any additions or subtractions. The spreadsheet should include beginning balance, additions, subtractions, and any adjustments required for recording to agree with the general ledger ending balances for capital accounts.

Historical details of cash accounts or bank statements are used to identify irregularities, balance sheet errors, or fraudulent activities. One example of where this method is used is a case scenario involving a company that records an average annual revenue of $50 million based on historical records. This is the act of making sure that all of a company’s accounts balance correctly, especially in cases where there are multiple sources of records and transactions.

This year, the estimated amount of the expected account balance is off by a significant amount. Because the individual is fastidious about keeping receipts, they call the credit card to dispute the amounts. After an investigation, the credit card is found to have been compromised by a criminal who was able to obtain the company’s information and charge the individual’s credit card. The individual is reimbursed for the incorrect charges, the card is canceled, and the fraudulent activity stopped. The documentation review process compares the amount of each transaction with the amount shown as incoming or outgoing in the corresponding account. For example, suppose a responsible individual retains all of their credit card receipts but notices several new charges on the credit card bill that they do not recognize.

#3 – Vendor Reconciliation – Vendor balances on the company’s books are matched with the balance of the respective vendors’ books. A deposit in transit is money that has been received by a company and sent to the bank, but it has yet to be processed and posted to the bank account. Individuals and businesses perform reconciliation at regular intervals to check for errors or fraudulent activity. But, generally accepted accounting principles demand double-entry accounting. Now cloud accounting software has made the whole process more efficient.

• SMBs which produce monthly management accounts will need to reconcile their bank, receivables and payables at a minimum of once per month for the correct information to be presented in their accounts.
• FloQast’s suite of easy-to-use and quick-to-deploy solutions enhance the way accounting teams already work.
• Using a documentation review, “document review is a formalised technique of data collection involving the examination of existing records or documents.” This is the most common approach of account reconciliation.
• Generally done for general ledgers, account reconciliation involves the comparison of two independent but related records to make sure that transactions and balances correspond with each other.
• While you can perform account reconciliation manually, you can save valuable time and energy when you use accounting software tools to reconcile your accounts.

Centralize, streamline, and automate end-to-end intercompany operations with global billing, payment, and automated reconciliation capabilities that provide speed and accuracy. Ignite staff efficiency and advance your business to more profitable growth. Automatically process and analyze critical information such as sales and payment performance data, customer payment trends, and DSO to better manage risk and develop strategies to improve operational performance. Improve the prioritization of customer calls, reduce days sales outstanding, and watch productivity rise with more dynamic, accurate, and smarter collection management processes.