My account has not been reconciled in years, what are the recommendations if using Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker?

 

 

Overview

There are at least two immediate concerns regarding a reconciliation undone for years:-

1.       Are there any fraudulent entries and errors (maybe happening as we speak) that should be addressed?

2.       The accounts cannot be considered complete without the reconciliation.

 

The Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker bank reconciliation program

·         Works best where electronic bank statement and internal account data are available, data in Excel or text (*.txt) formats are great.

·         Reconciles 1,000s of transactions in seconds if it’s available electronically; the issue is getting the data in an electronic format.

 

Depending on your data and staffing the arrears can be tackled in a number of ways

 

Recommendation: Work from recent dates back then forward

Summary

This approach is: - start by doing last month’s reconciliation, then the month before then the month before and so on.

If, while going backwards, a new month occurs then do that new month immediately.

 

Benefits of this approach

1.       It motivates your team because results are being produced.

2.       It caps your exposure to past losses.

3.       It allows for quickly identifying current entries that are errors or fraudulent. (These are listed among the unmatched bank debits or internal deposits entries  (especially cash deposits).

4.       If there are missing bank statements or Cash Book records, you can step over it (to load and resolve them when the records are found or recreated).

5.       It should take about 15 minutes to reconcile each month.

 

Typical STEPS

The following Steps require an appreciation for the reconciliation process, spreadsheets and Internet Banking. For illustration assume that today is November 30 2008.

  1. Download or keypunch (into say Excel) the Cash Book and Bank Statement data for last month (October 2008).
  2. Load them in the Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker (it takes seconds to load a month) and System Match the cheques in seconds.
  3. Print the preliminary Unmatched Bank Debits System Report

·         There will usually be a high number of bank debits that are cashed cheques from past periods being cashed last month. Examine the report to see, for example, if the cheque numbers sequence seems right, also examine the cancelled cheques.

4.       Match the deposits and then review the preliminary Unmatched Internal Deposits report for errors.

  1. Repeat Steps 1 to 4 for each month working backwards (September 2008). If a new month occurs (November 2008), perform Steps 1 to 4 above on it.

·         Please ignore, for the interim, the fact that there will not be any (as yet) Cash Book balances as the earlier periods are yet to be loaded.

  1. Eventually, you will reach back to the last balanced reconciliation or when the account was opened. Assuming there was a filed last reconciliation:-

a.       Load the Opening Reconciliation into the Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker.

b.      In the Excel Cash Book (Step 1 above), use the Excel functions to calculate each month’s end balance and load these balances in the Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker.

c.       Use the program’s System Summary Report to determine which month is unbalanced (if any).

d.      Review and fix the missing or over posted data and move to next month.

e.      Complete the reconciliation.

f.        Print the balanced Final Reports for all periods.

 

General Prerequisites – Visual Enterprise Funds Tracker Usage

1.       Use your Internet Banking “File Download” option to save each month’s bank statement to your network, if Internet Banking is not installed request it immediately.

2.       Do a similar download for your Cash Book or other check creation system (payroll, accounts payable, cash book etc.). Get your software providers to install a file download option if unavailable

3.       Immediately

o   Start making arrangements to keypunch the data (to Excel for example) those bank and internal account records that are not computerized.

o   Create a computerized Cash Book (Excel is acceptable) with monthly balances and the individual deposit amounts. For cheques, if there are large numbers then, seek permission to insert only the cheque run’s total and cheque number range.