External Reconciliation

This process is used to reconcile the balance account on an ongoing basis to minimize the workload during period and year-end closings. The reconciliation is done against an external document from any business partner, such as a statement of account from a bank.

Before You Start

  • The account to be reconciled is defined for reconciliation in ‘Accounting Identity. Open’ (CRS630).
  • The Reconciliation check box is selected in ‘Settings - General Ledger’ (CRS750/F).

Follow These Steps

The process includes the following activities:

  1. Create Statement of Account No. for Checking Off Transactions

    A statement of account number can be defined for every account number in ‘Account. Reconcile Externally’ (GLS180). To this number information like date range and opening/closing balance (OB/CB) from the statement of account is added.

  2. Manually Check Off Transactions on Balance Accounts

    When the statement of account number is created, the transactions within the selected range should be checked off in ‘Account. Reconcile Externally’ (GLS180). If any transaction is discovered not entered in the general ledger, voucher entry can be started using F16 = ‘Enter voucher’.

    The reconciliation can be ended definitely only when the closing balance (CB) in the general ledger equals the CB in the statement of account, and when the accumulated reconciliation equals the period balance. However, the reconciliation can be left incomplete and continued later.

  3. Automatically Check Off Transactions

    The procedure of matching transactions on a bank statement with the transactions on an account in the general ledger can be time consuming task. If your bank provides the transactions electronically, in an EDI file, you can automate this procedure. This is done in three steps:

    1. You receive the file from the bank and store it in the batch entry files. Conversion is done by a protocol in M3 e-Collaborator.

    2. Check off transactions by selecting option 12 = ‘Automatically reconcile’ in (GLS180/B). If there is a check number or draft number, this information is used for the reconciliation. If not, the following algorithm is used:

      Step Valuation date Accounting date Bank operation code Amount
      1 x x x x
      2 x x x
      3 x x

      The possible scenarios are:

      • The bank transaction is identified in the general ledger and is reconciled
      • The bank transaction cannot be found in the general ledger
      • There are transactions in the general ledger not included in the bank statement.

    3. Manually adjust transactions that were not reconciled. In some cases, you may have to enter a journal voucher via (GLS181/B).

    To facilitate the work, you can print a statement list before and after the reconciliation by selecting option 16 = Print in (GLS180/B).

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