Reconcile all your bank statements in one place

The traditionally manual bank reconciliation process is an arduous one.  Each step can be complicated, lead to errors and take a long time. Here are the typical 4 steps in bank reconciliation and why they are so difficult to do manually: 
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1. Retrieve the data from two sources – data is not always easy to access and can only be extracted in certain file types and formats which are not always conducive for reconciliation.
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2. Reconcile the data – matching data sets is easier said than done if various factors are involved and there is a high volume of transactions to match.
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3. Manage exceptions – a pivotal part of reconciliation but one which can go unnoticed if investigators aren’t automatically notified of exceptions.
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4. Report final reconciliation – once more this will require consolidating data and moving it to another piece of software such as an ERP. Depending on compatibility, things can go wrong here when not automated.
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In contrast, automatic reconciliation software by Aurum will handle all these bank reconciliation steps in seconds thanks to APIs, fast matching rates, in-app notifications and more. This saves time, eliminates errors and makes data transfers seamless.

A bank reconciliation is a common activity for financial teams within any company. It consists of collecting a company’s bank statement and its own internal records of cash transactions. With these two data sets, deposits and withdrawals are compared across the two sources. This will expose whether there are any exceptions and if any reconciliation adjustments are needed due to bank errors, timing differences or unidentified transactions.

Reconciliation comes in many different forms due to it simply being the action of cross-referencing two or more sets of data. This action is usually conducted between internal and external records. Some of the most common types of reconciliation which finance and operations teams conduct are bank reconciliations, PSP reconciliations, and client money reconciliations although there are many more examples.

Reconciliation by finance and operations teams is a fundamental activity for compliance and business purposes. It therefore keeps companies and their clients safe whilst also supporting their success. The latter is achieved by improving forecasting, ensuring data integrity, and if done with automated reconciliation software, freeing up resource for professionals to focus on value-adding initiatives.

Reconciliation software such as Aurum automatically imports, reconciles, flags exceptions and reports on financial data without the need for manual intervention. Such solutions save companies time and money.

Manually preparing a bank reconciliation is a lengthy task. Time is quickly lost by having to source data and then cleansing it ready for cross-comparing. This is all before reconciliation even takes place. However, thanks to Aurum’s automated reconciliation software having an exhaustive bank of APIs, not only can it reconcile bank transactions in seconds, it can also extract, transform and load the required data automatically.

Bank reconciliations were historically done at least once a month. However, with the advent of automated reconciliation software and increasing number of transactions, it is now encouraged and possible to do them more regularly.

Reconciliation software offers many benefits including automation, speed, accuracy, auditability, detecting fraud, streamlining of processes, and giving financial professionals more time to focus on value-added activities.