Is your account reconciliation handled by your employees? Isn’t it time consuming and tedious? Well, if you are one of those organisations whose account reconciliation process is a major bottleneck in the financial close process, then this article is for you.
Today, almost all companies, from medium to large commonly reconcile thousands of accounts during the quarter-end or month-end close, yet majority rely on manual methods to determine the adjustments, if needed.
The risks encountered by manual methods are many, like missing or lost reconciliations, improper use of roll-forwards, unreconciled accounts, insufficient justification or documentation, and others alike. If you want to protect your organisation against such costly mistakes and eliminate the scope of any risk, then you must invest in an automated reconciliation software.
In fact, the key is to not only automate the account reconciliation process but to fully integrate it with the financial close workflow. With this integrated application, the administration, preparation, and review of account reconciliations becomes all the more efficient.
Wondering whether your organisation actually needs an account reconciliation system? Consider if the symptoms listed below are familiar; if they do, it may be time to automate your reconciliation process.
1. Lack of Visibility in the Task Completion Status
If your organization is struggling to track reconciliation progress and report on exceptions, it’s time you invest in an automated reconciliation software. It not only provides real-time insight into the reconciliation process but also enables dashboard reporting. In addition, the dashboards are highly customizable and provide alerts for reconciliation and aging violations. This implies that companies are proactive rather than reactive throughout the entire reconciliation process.
2. Fragmented Data
Standardization is typically difficult to achieve through a manual reconciliation process. On the other hand, multiple reconciliation formats result in problems related to accessing it and also fragmented data. That’s where the automated reconciliation software comes into play. It streamlines different reconciliation formats with a single and uniform methodology to perform balance sheet reconciliations.
3. Reconciliations Takes Too Long
If your mundane manual account reconciliation process is consuming a lot of your valuable time and resources on a regular basis, then it is time to move on. Whether be it keying balances into a spreadsheet or producing reconciliation schedules, improved efficiency is what you need. And, it is a major benefit of automating your financial process.
An automated reconciliation software helps accelerate and close the financial process by automating certain reconciliation profiles. In addition, there are others which provide offline storage of reconciliation information and attachments and allow to handle external and internal audit queries with little to no interference.
Final Word
Automation can help you simplify and expedite the overall financial process. Not only this, it also ensures accuracy and saves a lot of time. From bank reconciliation to supplier statement reconciliation, accounting for foreign currency, and approving balance sheets, automated reconciliation software provides a plethora of benefits. So, what are you waiting for? Invest in one today!
