How to align conciliations with financial reports in the digital age? 

Aligning conciliations with financial reports is a crucial process in modern accounting, as it ensures that a company’s internal records match the bank statements. Conciliations are an essential activity in the accounting of any business, ensuring that all deposits, payments, and charges are accurately reflected.

With the right tools, businesses can optimize this process, making it faster and, most importantly, ensuring that the alignment between the conciliation and financial reports is more precise, with accurate data for informed decision-making.

Integrate financial systems for full alignment

To begin with, one of the most common challenges when performing conciliations is the disconnect between banking systems and accounting systems. In most cases, bank transactions must be manually entered into internal records, which can lead to discrepancies due to a lack of precision.

The key to efficiently aligning bank conciliations with financial reports is integrating all financial systems. Modern platforms today allow companies to connect their bank accounts to accounting software, automatically downloading information.

These tools also integrate with other platforms such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, enabling proper inventory management and payroll applications.

Thus, integrating both systems ensures that all records are connected, and any transaction made in the bank is immediately reflected in the financial reports. This not only saves time but also improves the accuracy of the reports and provides easy access to up-to-date information.

A clear example is when making a payment to a supplier from the company’s bank account, this payment will be automatically recorded in the accounting system, allowing the financial report to be updated immediately. In this way, the conciliation and financial reports will be aligned without the need for manual intervention.

Monitor pending transactions in real-time

Similarly, although automation and system integration are powerful tools, it is still necessary to keep track of pending transactions, such as uncashed checks, transfers in transit, or scheduled payments. These elements must be considered in the financial reports.

The good news is that modern financial platforms allow you to monitor these pending transactions in real-time. For example, if a check has been issued but not yet cashed or a transfer has not yet been processed, the system can alert you about these transactions. This functionality is crucial to ensure that financial reports are as accurate as possible.

Furthermore, many platforms allow you to mark pending transactions directly in the system, making it easier to track and adjust them in the conciliations and financial reports.

In this way, you can be sure that all transactions, both processed and pending, are adequately reflected in the reports.

Achieve automatic transaction categorization and Custom rules

On the other hand, a common challenge in bank conciliations is ensuring that transactions are correctly categorized in the accounting system. For example, a payment to a supplier may be recorded differently if classified as an “operating expense” or “inventory purchase,” which can cause discrepancies in financial reports.

This technology allows you to set automatic rules to categorize transactions according to predefined categories in the system. This not only saves time but also ensures that transactions are recorded in the correct accounts.

Likewise, advanced financial platforms allow you to customize these rules to meet the specific needs of your business. This means you can establish rules for different types of transactions, making conciliation easier and ensuring that reports accurately reflect the company’s financial situation.

Leverage automation tools to improve efficiency

Furthermore, automation plays a fundamental role in improving the efficiency of conciliations. Cloud-based accounting platforms like OneStream offer tools that allow importing bank statements directly into the accounting system, significantly reducing the manual workload and the risk of errors.

These platforms can perform automatic conciliations, meaning the system will quickly identify matching transactions between internal records and the bank.

One of the biggest advantages of automation is that it speeds up the process, allowing conciliations to be done almost instantly. Instead of spending hours or days reviewing transaction details manually, these tools generate reports almost in real time, enabling near-instant decision-making.