Why reconciliation must still succeed during an ecommerce crisis

The birth of online payments 30 years ago signalled what many thought would be the end of the high street. To some extent, that has proven to be true. Even before COVID, between 2012 and 2019, footfall on UK highstreets fell by 10% whilst the percentage of all retail purchases via ecommerce grew by 7.5% over the same period.

Undeniably, by making access to goods from around the world easier than ever for people, ecommerce has become an amazing success story for fusing digital technology with payments. So much so, the high street has had to embrace the ecommerce landscape by fusing into it.

Known as an omnichannel strategy, a mixture of in-person and digital retail is now common with Marks and Spencer, the Co-op, and other high street names. However, in recent weeks, rather than the innovation and success of ecommerce proving to be the death knell for retail giants, its downfall has instead been to their collective detriment.

Order status: on hold  

Subject to a series of cyber attacks by the ransomware group known as Scattered Spider, Marks and Spencer and other retailers with an online presence took preventative measures to protect their digital systems and sensitive customer information. Consequently, their online orders have been put on hold for the foreseeable future, not only for their customers but also for themselves, impacting their supply chains.  

Whilst this is no doubt causing a substantial revenue loss for these organisations – the Bank of America Global Research estimates that Marks and Spencer have lost £43 million a week in sales – and playing a significant role in share values dropping by as much as 12% for those affected, it is also causing logistical and security headaches based on questions such as:  

• Was any customer data accessed before systems were closed and used for fraudulent transactions?  
  

• Will customers who placed orders just as systems went down receive their goods on time, or will the upending of communications between payment systems, back-offices, and warehouses result in severe delays?  
  

• Do they have the capacity and infrastructure in place to rebound from this digital lockdown, catch up on reconciliation, and recover an accurate financial and inventory position?  
  

Rebounding with reconciliation

Whilst Marks and Spencer are showing no signs of reconciling with their hackers nor giving in to any demands, they will have to rely on a different type of reconciliation to rebound from a difficult time. That which is well known in financial circles and involves matching internal data against external data to guarantee data integrity.  

A robust, scalable, and efficient reconciliation process is a requirement for all ecommerce firms but typically becomes an absolute non-negotiable necessity when business is going well, driving transaction volumes higher and seeing new geographies entered. In such instances, financial operations can become easily overwhelmed and detrimentally impact the rest of a business if automated reconciliation is not in place. However, the same is also true in instances when business is not going so well, such as that which Marks and Spencer have recently experienced.  

Concerningly, there was an increase by 48% of the number of ransomware groups in 2024 due to its commercialisation and the development of AI. As a result, out of 150 global cybersecurity and business leaders in the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025, 47% rank ransomware as their highest concern. Let’s therefore look at how having the right reconciliation processes in place can ensure that recovery from these attacks, which are becoming more common, is easier and swifter:  

• Fulfilling customer orders – payments processes are a complex system by themselves; however, when they are part of a wider logistical web to fulfil the delivery of orders, opportunities for errors become even greater. After all, being part of a larger web means that data must flow through more systems promptly and correctly.  
  
  Under normal circumstances, reconciliation ensures accuracy throughout this process. For instance, Buster + Punch improved their inventory management across five continents thanks to Aurum's ability to intelligently monitor all stock movements, whether due to orders, returns, or other reasons.  
  
  However, the likes of Marks and Spencer are currently experiencing anything but normal circumstances. Consequently, due to their digital systems being taken offline, they are facing the prospect of some orders going out for delivery before their self-enforced lockdown and others remaining stagnant in their warehouse due to it taking them longer to gain access data to payments which were made before their ecommerce online ordering systems went down for customers.  
  
  Unfortunately, without digital assistance, knowing what orders have been delivered and which have been paid for and therefore should be sent out for delivery, is a logistical nightmare in this day and age for an operation the size of Marks and Spencer. Ultimately, they will be left to reconcile order and payment statuses by hand.  
  
  When systems do get back up and running, masses of unreconciled data will undoubtedly be backlogged. Nevertheless, it will have to be reconciled first before any orders are fulfilled. If not, Marks and Spencer’s inventory management will lose integrity, they will place their financial position in peril, and risk annoying their customers even further with incorrect orders. As a result, to avoid further troubles and reclaim their reputation, their resumption of reconciliation – and in turn fulfilling of orders – must be with software that can deal with high volumes, highlighting that these tools are an integral part of the finance tech stack for any ecommerce business.  
  

• Preventing fraud – currently, Marks and Spencer are confident that no customer bank details have been stolen. However, there is still a risk of this having happened and some fraudulent transactions being made in the small gap between the attack being recognised and them taking their digital systems down.  
  
  Although automated reconciliation can’t confirm fraud, it can highlight anomalies which suggest it is taking place due to stolen bank details. Admittedly, manual reconciliation can do this too; however, when faced with hundreds of thousands of transactions, it is challenging for any individual to spot suspicious transactions.  
  
  In contrast, intelligent automated reconciliation such as Aurum can highlight if an unusually high number of transactions or of high value from one account are made and warrant investigation. Again, when systems go live again, reconciling transactions via an intelligent automated system is therefore imperative for Marks and Spencer so they can check that no fraudulent transactions took place over this period of vulnerability.  
  
  With Xavier Sheikrojan, Senior Risk Intelligence Manager at Signifyd, issuing a warning that "retailers are prime targets because of the volume of identity and payment data they hold", those in the ecommerce sector must ensure that reconciliation processes are set up to assist with fraud.  
  

• Rediscovering your financial position – surrendering digital systems will instantly put any ecommerce firm on the back foot when it comes to maintaining an accurate financial position. After all, the volume of transactions they handle daily isn’t manageable without an automated reconciliation system.
  
  Consequently, Marks and Spencer will no doubt be facing a swathe of unreconciled payments from various sources. Plus, when their systems recover, new customer orders are likely to be exceptionally high, resulting in them dealing with even more transactions than usual.  
  
  They must overcome this not only to ensure that customer orders are fulfilled but also for the sake of the financial rigour. Put simply, all businesses today must maintain a real-time financial position. If they don’t, they risk undermining their cash flow, their forecasts, and more, increasing the likelihood of misinformed business decisions.  
  
  To avert this crisis from emerging and recovering their financial position as quickly as possible, any ecommerce firm hit by a ransomware attack affecting their payments operations, or any which are functioning normally, will therefore require an automated reconciliation tool.  
  
  Why? Not just because they can guarantee data integrity in mere seconds but because some of the more sophisticated ones, such as Aurum, can create and send journal files automatically to finance systems. As a result, even when masses of data are unreconciled, in mere minutes, finance teams find themselves able to update their financial statements and ascertain their overall financial position.  
  

• Cover all payment methods – cyber-attacks result in unpredictable scenarios. After all, for some time contactless payments went down for Marks & Spencer resulting in a higher reliance on the now old-fashioned payments method of cash.  
  
  In the year 2025, most retailers might think that their cash reconciliation is of less importance than others, such as PSP reconciliation; however, recent events illustrate that the former must be as robust and scalable as any process. As a result, for omnichannel retailers who offer ecommerce services and in-person shopping experiences, if they wish to keep track of their income, it is imperative that they have the means to run an efficient cash reconciliation process.  
  
  In other words, they should look to an automated reconciliation tool such as Aurum, which offers the best of both worlds – highly innovative, forward-thinking solutions plus 20 years of reconciliation experience. After all, this mixture has proved successful for the likes of Lakeland for example, enabling them to pinpoint the location of specific stores where anomalies arise in their cash reconciliation.  
  
  Overall, the incident Marks and Spencer and other retailers with an ecommerce presence are currently experiencing is a lesson for the entire industry. Fortunately, though - as shown above - the real-world application of Aurum by other retailers proves that having a robust, scalable, and fast automated reconciliation can resolve many issues professionally once digital systems resume.  
  

Shop around for the best

Ecommerce has meant that consumers now have more choice than ever before, allowing them to shop around for the best deals, quality, or whatever matters most to them. However, for ecommerce firms facing the stark reality of more frequent and disruptive cyber-attacks, what matters to them regarding reconciliation is not subjective – they need the best.  

To discover how our automated reconciliation solutions and team of consultants will take care of you through the good times and the bad, book your Aurum demo today.