At the conclusion of each week, month, and quarter, accounting teams spend an excessive number of hours manually reconciling data in spreadsheets to finalize the company’s financial records. This represents a significant and avoidable depletion of resources, especially considering the advanced technology available today.
Is your organization facing challenges in completing the account reconciliation process promptly due to the overwhelming task of manually piecing together spreadsheets and emails to match transactions? If so, you’re at a higher risk over overlooking transactions, producing inaccurate financial statements, and becoming susceptible to financial fraud somewhere in the near or far future.
With this in mind, here are three indicators that your organization has surpassed the use of basic tools such as spreadsheets and emails for managing account reconciliations:
1. The Process of Reconciling Accounts is Excessively Time-Consuming
The manual process of reviewing account balances and making adjustments by sifting through spreadsheets containing thousands of rows is a cumbersome and meticulous task. The likelihood of errors increases when data is manually entered and transferred between systems.
With more steps involved, there’s greater potential for mistakes, leading to the need for multiple checks and verifications. Consequently, accounting teams end up spending an excessive amount of time on the reconciliation process.
Moreover, manually matching transactions from various resources can result in some GL accounts not being properly reconciled. This approach requires the finance department to invest weeks in uploading, locating, and manually reconciling transactions one by one. Accounting leaders must also conduct meetings with staff to understand the overall status of reconciliation activities, further extending the time it takes to close the books.
This manual method also takes a toll on employee morale as they spend considerable time on unfulfilling data entry tasks.
To address these challenges, NetSuite Account Reconciliation offers a solution by automating manual and time-consuming tasks related to transaction matching and reconciliation. Accounting teams can prioritize accounts based on risk or value, delegate reconciliation task to individual team members, and monitor the progress of the process as a whole.
Low-risk or low-value accounts can be automatically reconciled without human intervention, with potential discrepancies or anomalies being flagged. This automation allows accounting staff to concentrate on high-priority accounts, analyses, and the goal of providing strategic value to the organization. NetSuite’s auto-match engine can match millions of transactions within minutes. Companies can also establish flexible matching rules for individual transactions or groups of transactions, such as one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many matches, thereby expediting reconciliations and transaction matching.
2. There’s a Lack of Trust in Financial Statements
The absence of standardized processes and reliance on spreadsheet introduce uncertainty. Are all accounts properly reconciled, or might there be missed or inaccurately accounted items?
In addition to impeding the financial close process, inaccurate reconciliations and financial statements can harm your company’s reputation and potentially lead to fines for misreporting financial results.
NetSuite Account Reconciliation addresses these addresses through seamless integration with NetSuite ERP. This integration automatically transfers all general ledger accounts and balances into the application for reconciliation and transaction matching. Beyond this, NetSuite Account Reconciliation consolidates all reconciliation transactions and documents into one accessible location, enabling easy access for accounting staff, managers, and auditors. This eliminates the need to gather documents from multiple sources, thereby reducing the likelihood of accountants mixing up or overlooking essential data or transactions.
NetSuite also ensures that all transactions are accurately recorded in the appropriate GL accounts, thereby enhancing the correctness and timeliness of financial reporting and expediting the financial close process.
3. There are Inadequate Financial Controls and Compliance Concerns
Effective workflow controls among preparers, reviewers, and final approvals are crucial. However, manually enforcing stringent controls during the reconciliation process can inadvertently reduce transparency and lead to increased time and expenses.
Accounting teams that rely on manual reconciliation not only waste valuable staff time but also jeopardize the integrity of financial statements, raising the risk of fraud and potential compliance issues.
With NetSuite Account Reconciliation, you gain access to a secure document repository, ensuring that reconciliations are not misplaced or lost, while providing comprehensive global auditability. The solution maintains a detailed log of reconciliations as proof to meet financial control and compliance requirements. Standardized account reconciliation templates, along with automated workflows for review and approval processes, and built-in segregation of duties, significantly enhance financial controls and enable auditors to access much-needed information independently.
Take the Next Step with NetSuite
Accounting leaders seek an accurate and efficient reconciliation process that minimizes risks and expenses, ensures regulatory compliance, and provides a transparent audit trail. By achieving this, they can dedicate more time to data analysis and strategic decision making, where their expertise holds significant value. Moreover, accounting team members can now identify fraudulent and inaccurate transactions without the need for line-by-line reviews.
A cloud-based account reconciliation solution, integrated with your financial management system, addresses numerous challenges related to manual, time-consuming, and error-prone processes, allowing accountants to contribute more meaningfully to the business.
Let MIBAR Lift You Up!
Are you experiencing challenges with manual and time-consuming account reconciliations using spreadsheets and emails? Does your organization need to enhance financial controls, ensure compliance, and gain a clear audit trail?
Look no further than NetSuite Account Reconciliation!
This seamless cloud-based solution automates reconciliation tasks and transaction matching, reducing risks and costs while improving the accuracy of financial statements. Accounting leaders can now focus on data analysis and strategic decision making, while the accounting team can identify fraudulent transactions efficiently.
Don’t let outdated tools hinder your financial processes; contact MIBAR today to learn how NetSuite Account Reconciliation can benefit your business!
Additional Resources
Year-End Close: 7 Tips for Taking Back Control
How to Solve 3 Month-End Close Challenges
