About the reconciliation process

In general, you perform the following steps when you reconcile a cash account:

1. Preparing for the reconciliation:
   Optionally, during each financial period, you clear transactions (cash transactions, payments to suppliers, incoming payments window customers, and cash sales) as you receive information that the transactions have passed through.
   For more information, see: Managing bank statements - overview
2. Verifying the cash account beginning balance:
   At the end of the period, you verify the beginning balance for each cash account.
   In the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window, you verify that the beginning balance of the cash account in the system (per your books) matches the beginning balance on the bank statement (or your record of the petty cash account); if they do not match, void the earlier statement and fix all errors. Also, you can review the older transactions for the account that had not yet been reconciled and see which of them were preliminarily cleared.
   
   If a transaction has been matched to one on a bank statement in the Process bank transactions (CA306000) window, the transaction has the Cleared check box selected in the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window. Also, a transaction is cleared if a user has selected the Cleared check box for it on the window where the transaction was entered.
   For more information, see: About processing imported transactions
3. Creating the reconciliation statement:
   You create a new reconciliation statement for the cash account in the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window and enter the statement balance, for instance, the ending balance from the bank statement, or the sum of the cash register receipt amounts and the cash account beginning balance.
4. Clearing the transactions:
   If you have used the Process bank transactions (CA306000) window to clear bank transactions, you click the Reconcile processed button in the table toolbar, the system selects the Reconciled check boxes in the table for all released documents that were processed in the Process bank transactions (CA306000) window.

   If you have been manually clearing transactions during the financial period for which you have created the reconciliation statement and are sure that the clearing is valid, you select the Reconciled check box (to the left of the Cleared check box) for each cleared transaction.

   If there are no cleared transactions, you can use a bank statement or other paper documents confirming transactions; compare the transactions to lines of the bank statement by using transaction identifiers, dates, and amounts; and select the Reconciled check box in the first column for the confirmed transactions.

   You can perform reconciliation in as many sessions as you need. You can save the reconciliation statement (with the On hold or Balanced status) at any time to continue to work with it later.
5. Adjusting the cash account balance:
   As you progress through the list, you can view the updated value of the difference between the reconciled balance of the cash account and the balance of the statement you have entered. You can create cash adjustments for transactions (such as bank interest or service charges) that occurred but were not recorded to the account. The reconciliation is finished when the difference between the reconciled balance of the cash account and the balance of the statement is zero.
6. Confirming the reconciliation results:
   When you have finished comparing the cash account transactions to a bank statement or other paper documents confirming transactions and the difference between the reconciled balance of the cash account and the balance of the statement is zero, you save and release the reconciliation statement. Thus, you have confirmed that the cash account balance is reconciled for the selected period.

In the following sections you can find additional information about the details of the reconciliation process, which you perform with the help of Visma Net.

If you have never performed reconciliation for a particular account and then, starting on a specific date, decide to start reconciling the account (for example, when you are converting a cash account into a bank account), consider creating a first reconciliation statement that includes all the transactions that had been recorded to this account before this specific date and that were not recorded to another source.

To start the first reconciliation, you need to know the balance of your first reconciliation statement.
In the Cash account details (CA303000) window, select the cash account and date range for which the transactions are displayed (from the date of the first transaction to the date that immediately precedes the date of conversion).
Make sure that all transactions, which you are going to reconcile, are posted to the General ledger.
Then write down the value of the Ending balance field (in the top part); this will be your first reconciliation statement balance, which you enter in the Statement balance field in the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window.

You can use the Cash account summary (CA633000) to find out the ending balance of a cash account.

When you know the balance of your first reconciliation statement, you create the reconciliation statement and mark the transactions as reconciled.
When the reconciled balance and the statement balance are equal, you save and release the reconciliation statement.

When you are reconciling the account for the second time, if you detect transactions that should belong to the first statement, you void the first statement, add these transactions, and release the statement again.

If you are reconciling a bank account, you compare the cash account transactions to the bank account records (usually found in a bank statement).
Theoretically, the balance of the bank account should reconcile with the balance of the associated cash account as shown in your system.
However, a transaction may be recorded on your books sooner or later than the bank actually reflects that change to the corresponding account.
Also, the bank may invoke service charges of amounts that are not known in advance.

If you have been regularly tracking bank transactions during a financial period or have processed a bank statement just before the reconciliation, you probably do not need to adjust the balance of the cash account during the reconciliation because your records are up to date.

If you do not use automatic processing of the bank transactions (or of the other records that confirm the cash account transactions), you may encounter a transaction that is in a bank statement, but is not recorded to the system. In Visma Net, you can create cash adjustments for transactions (such as bank interest or service charges) that occurred but were not recorded to the account.
To do this, you click the Create adjustment button in the table toolbar of the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window.

You can indicate to the system how you want to handle voided transactions by using the Skip voided transactions check box in the Cash management preferences (CA101000) window.

If the check box is cleared, the system includes in the list of transactions both the original transaction and the voided transaction.
If the check box is selected, the system skips these transactions and does not include them in the reconciliation.

If a payment is released and reconciled at the end of a financial period and then the payment is voided in the next financial period, the system does not change the released reconciliation statement and does not skip the voided payment during reconciliation.

When you save a reconciliation statement for the first time and the system assigns the reference number to it, the value of the Skip voided transactions check box at this moment is preserved by the system for this particular statement. If you change the value of the check box after saving the statement for the first time, the system will display the Voided transactions are skipped check box in the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window.

This check box will reflect the value of Skip voided transactions at the moment when the statement was first saved.
The system will handle voided transactions as this setting indicates.

If you want the system to handle the voided transactions the other way (that is, with the check box selected if it was cleared or cleared if it was selected), you need to delete the saved reconciliation statement, adjust the value of the Skip voided transactions check box, and create a new reconciliation statement.

You can release a balanced statement by clicking Release in the window toolbar of the Reconciliation statement history (CA302010) or the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window.

The released statement includes only documents that were marked as reconciled (see the Reconciled check box in the table in the Reconciliation statements (CA302000) window). When you release the reconciliation statement, the system assigns a date and a reconciliation statement reference number to all transactions marked as reconciled; these transactions will not appear on any future reconciliation statement.

If transactions were not marked as reconciled but were marked as cleared, they will keep the Cleared status and will appear on any subsequent statement until they are reconciled.

The amounts of unreleased transactions with the Cleared status affect an available balance of a cash account balance, only if the Unreleased cleared check box is selected in the Receipts to add to available balances and Disbursements to deduct from available balances sections of the Cash management preferences (CA101000) window.
For more information, see: About cash account configuration

Only one open statement is allowed for each cash account.
If you find an error in an earlier statement for a cash account, delete the open statement (which is not released), locate the last released statement, and void it.
Voiding the statement removes the reconciliation marks from the documents and makes the documents available again for proper reconciliation.
Notice that voiding does not change the status of the documents that were created during the reconciliation process.