NOTICIAS

All the criteria you need to consider to make the smartest choice of a powerful reconciliation software.

Table of Contents:

• What is reconciliation software?
• What types of reconciliation software are there and which one is the best?
• What criteria should be taken into account when choosing a reconciliation software?

Although it is not possible to determine exactly what the origin of reconciliations was, it is certain that it is linked to one of the best known modalities, which is the bank reconciliation.

This allows us to understand that this action responds to the need to control possessions and record them, being one of the most effective methods to detect errors and discrepancies in accounting and banking records in order to avoid fraud and accounting errors.

However, as we have warned in several posts in this blog, this is not the only type of reconciliation that companies can do because as the volume of data handled by companies has increased, it is increasingly necessary to reconcile different aspects of a business that, although they have a financial impact, are not carried out strictly for accounting purposes.

Other types of reconciliations that we will explore here focus on the objective of optimizing business profitability by taking advantage of opportunities that can be quickly and easily visualized through software, which you should choose with a forward-looking view of your company’s evolution.

What is reconciliation software?

A reconciliation software is a computer tool that allows automating the bank reconciliation process, among other reconciliations.

This type of software has the ability to integrate the bank statements of all accounts and compare them with the company’s accounting records to detect errors and discrepancies, as mentioned above.

On the other hand, the bank reconciliation software can generate reports and accounting entries directly in the company’s accounting, being a modality increasingly used by companies to save time and reduce errors in the reconciliation process.

In fact, companies increasingly have to administer and manage more and more data, including data from different sources, but in all cases they require reconciliation.

If we look into the types of reconciliations that a company can perform in 2023, we find at least this range of possibilities:

• Bank reconciliations
• Credit card reconciliations
• Ticket reconciliations
• Human Resources Payroll Reconciliations
• Corporate card reconciliations
• Membership reconciliations
• Service benefits reconciliations
• Inventory reconciliations

The list of options could go on endlessly because, certainly, the volume of data that companies have today forces them to be more rigorous in the management of the same so that their businesses are really profitable.

It is worth saying that a simple reconciliation is not enough, but also, in these times, it is much more valuable to be able to trace all the data that a company can obtain.

As we can see, reconciliations have directly or indirectly a purpose related to the finances of a company, but in some cases it will yield accounting data and in others it will cross valuable information to make decisions that increase the returns on investment.

The point is, in this sense, to recognize which is the best reconciliation software your business should use. Read on because we will talk about this later.

What types of reconciliation software are there and which one is the best?

Just as there are different types of reconciliations that a company can perform today, there are also different reconciliation software that respond to these demands.

To name them would be an infinite journey because there are as many software as there are objectives that businesses have in relation to the banking or accounting information they handle, as well as the processing of all types of data.

However, there is only one reconciliation software that is 100% flexible, multifunctional and comprehensive. It is Conciliac Enterprise Data Management (EDM), a single platform for all types of reconciliations and more.

It can be considered the best reconciliation software because it is also modular. This means that companies will use it to solve one type of reconciliation and, as they recognize all the alternatives they have when they purchase a license, they can scale to use other modules without additional costs or implementations.

Sometimes a company’s data management becomes a bottleneck that not only impacts accounting, but also wastes time and opportunities.

When a company incorporates a data-driven mindset, it begins to visualize everything that can be optimized with reconciliation software capable of automating procedures from start to finish.

Although we have already shared with you a key fact to choose the best reconciliation software, we are going to nourish this with all the criteria you need to know when choosing the software, or rather, the module through which you will begin to evolve and turn each step into a possibility of profitability.

What criteria should be taken into account when choosing a reconciliation software?

Although most of the companies that look for a reconciliation software have a clear objective for which they want it, that is to say, they have a problem to solve and they know why a software is better than to continue doing reconciliations with Excel spreadsheets, not all of them know what is all that they can optimize with this type of software solutions.

For this reason, we put together the criteria that we believe companies should take into account when choosing a reconciliation software, although ultimately, knowing that everything they can do is within a single platform such as Conciliac EDM, these same criteria apply when understanding where to start and how to continue with the evolutionary path in relation to the automation of data processing that they can perform.

These are the criteria:

1. Functionality of reconciliation software

We have said that there are as many softwares as there are types of reconciliations to be done; however, why choose one over the other? What criteria should I take into account?

An important criterion is flexibility: it should allow you to relate different reconciliation scenarios in a simple and “plastic” way, so to speak. In other words, it should be open enough to allow you to decide on the crossover criteria yourself and to improve and change them over time.

Another important criterion is the hidden costs: many cloud-based softwares will charge you according to the processing volume. If your company is planning to grow, keep in mind that these types of services can become very expensive as the volume increases. On the other hand, they may also have a limit on the number of reconciliation scenarios or sources you can integrate. These types of criteria put a limit on your growth even before the need arises. It is important to make sure that there are no such limitations.

A third important criterion is autonomy: look for software that is made to be configured and managed by a non-technical user, this will allow you to have total control and autonomy over your processes, without the need for a supplier to intervene when creating new criteria and reconciliation scenarios.

2. Integration:

The choice of a software is conditioned by the possibilities it has to integrate with your current accounting software on the one hand, and with your data sources (banks, payment methods, credit cards, etc.) on the other hand.

It is important that these integration possibilities are multiple, flexible and open. That is to say that it is possible to enable or configure them according to your needs at any time and for any scenario. For example, you can use a connection with an API to obtain the transactions of a digital payment method, but you can also obtain TXT files from an FTP folder for example, or connect on the other hand to the database of your management system.

Conciliac EDM not only has these options, but also has the ability to manage the information coming from different sources transforming files into PDF csv or txt, among other formats, so that this step is also part of the automation, accelerating exponentially the times and achieving much more accurate reconciliations automated from end to end.

3. Usability

Truly effective reconciliation software will make your experience simple, fast and accurate.

Does all this seem impossible in a single platform? Well, no, because one of the aspects that characterize an enterprise data management software like Conciliac is that no specific knowledge of development, code or platform functionality is required.

In fact, anyone with a minimum of training can get to know the platform and start configuring the reconciliation scenarios in seconds.

4. Technical support:

Any first step towards process automation, whether it is reconciliation or simply data management, is for many an adventure full of unknown instances.

Will I be able to do it? If I touch something that does not correspond, what impact will it have on the result? What do I do if, in addition to automating the bank reconciliation, I want to reconcile credit cards?

In short, these are just some of the doubts that may arise during implementation. The reality is that a reconciliation software has to be accompanied by the assistance of people who understand that they are in front of other people who want to solve a conflict but do not know certain attributes of the solution.

Technical support is essential, so in Conciliac we have designed training and consulting focused on each module for people to gain confidence and discover, with accompaniment through, all that this software can do.

5.Pricing

It is true that the cost of reconciliation software is a determining factor in taking the step towards the automation of this type of information. While it is necessary to do so, the losses from delaying this step can be even greater.

It will be enough to see a demo to recognize all the possible money leaks and the waste of time and resources that the traditional system is causing. This is why, in short, it is considered that this type of software “pays for itself”, considering the savings in time investment and the elimination of possible fraud points.

One of the most common mistakes when choosing software is to limit oneself to thinking about the present of the company. Good business requires a vision for the future, an understanding of where you want to take your goals and what you will do to get there.

A comprehensive data processing automation solution, such as Conciliac EDM’s, contains that option so that, as you move forward on this path, your business and your mindset begin to visualize what the next step is, which is also just a click away.

Write to us and we will show you in practice how you can apply it to your business right now.