The term reconciliation means different things to different people.
For some small businesses, reconciliation is that thing they do every so often when they finally figure out their bank balance and checkbook are out of balance.
For bigger businesses, reconciliation is an encompassing task that must be performed in order to close their books at the end of every accounting period.
The real question about reconciliation is how to do it.
For that little business, it may be with a pen, bank statement, their check register and a calculator.
For bigger businesses, it may take hours or even days of an accounting staff time to work with numerous reports from their accounting system, and spreadsheet after spreadsheet of data that ties one account to another.
Somewhere in between are the SMBs that rely on tools built into their accounting software, like transaction imports and reconcile that typically work only on the cash side of the house for bank and credit card accounts.
But now, there is a better way to perform all the necessary reconciliations to maintain the financial accuracy of any size business and close the books faster than ever.
Oracle NetSuite has just announced NetSuite Account Reconciliation to streamline the complexities of reconciliation. As part of NetSuite’s cloud ERP suite, NetSuite Account Reconciliation helps customers standardize and automate the reconciliation process, strengthen internal financial controls, produce more accurate financial statements and drive a faster close.
Source: Oracle NetSuite Media Content
“The general ledger reconciliation process can be one of the most complicated aspects of the financial close and a compliance risk,” says Gary Wiessinger, Senior VP NetSuite Application Development for Oracle NetSuite. “Similar to how we are leveraging Oracle technology to deliver NetSuite Analytics Warehouse and NetSuite Planning and Budgeting, NetSuite Account Reconciliation brings enterprise-grade technology to our customers to simplify a critical process.
Wiessinger says this solution extends the capabilities of our suite to help customers increase efficiency, ensure the completeness and accuracy of their financial statements, and gain more value from NetSuite.
Built on Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), NetSuite Account Reconciliation is the latest addition to NetSuite’s integrated suite of cloud applications. The new solution automates the reconciliation process for accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank and credit card transactions, prepaid accounts, accruals and fixed assets accounts, intercompany transactions, and other balance sheet accounts.
NetSuite Account Reconciliation helps organizations:
- Automate and Standardize the Reconciliation Processes: The new solution streamlines spreadsheet-heavy, manual close processes across all accounting and finance functions. It provides instant visibility into the reconciliation process so that organizations can focus time and resources on analysis, risk mitigation and exception handling.
- Enhance Internal Controls and Compliance: The new solution ensures reconciliations are not missed or lost, and that all the information is in the right place for global auditability. For example, organizations can receive notifications to help keep their teams on track and audit ready.
- Improve the Accuracy of Financial Statements and Speed of Close Cycles: The new solution removes inconsistencies and risk from balance sheet substantiation for period close and quarterly and annual audit purposes. For example, organizations can use dashboards to see the real-time status of reconciliations and variance details.
Rayburn Electric Cooperative is a non-profit generation and transmission utility that provides adequate, reliable and affordable wholesale electric energy to four Distribution Cooperatives serving rural communities in North Texas.
To maintain competitive costs for power and help maximize the value of our members’ investment, Stephanie Hunt, Rayburn's Corporate Controller, says the company needed a system that could help make our financial operations more efficient and require less manual intervention and review.
“With NetSuite Account Reconciliation, we will no longer have to do manual balance sheet recons in Excel which often causes delays, errors and headaches in our close process," Hunt says. "By having a real-time and accurate view of our financial position, we will be able to empower our team to be more productive and focus on value-adding activities for our members and communities.”
To further streamline and simplify account reconciliation processes, NetSuite Account Reconciliation provides one place to manage and view the period, reconciliation status and details of each account with balance comparisons and explanations, preparers, reviewers and sign-off dates.
This helps organizations automate and expedite comparing the general ledger, bank records and other data, and also accelerates the investigation of discrepancies.
NetSuite Account Reconciliation provides:
- Seamless Integration: NetSuite ERP and NetSuite Account Reconciliation are seamlessly integrated. This enables accounting teams to quickly and securely access NetSuite general ledger data and easily address any items needing to be reconciled. As a result, users spend less time entering transaction information and more time analyzing data and providing insights to drive faster, better decisions.
- Prebuilt Reconciliation Templates and Formats: 20 pre-built templates and formats help accounting teams accelerate the reconciliation process and improve consistency to increase the accuracy of financial reporting.
- Powerful Transaction Matching Engine: Helps accounting teams to automatically match millions of transactions in minutes. This helps reduce time and errors and by directly integrating with period-end reconciliations. It also enables a faster financial close.
- Secure Document Repository: Helps organizations address compliance and facilitates global audits by safeguarding reconciliations from any alterations or loss.
So what does this mean for businesses already using NetSuite and SMBs looking to transition to NetSuite because their existing accounting systems simply cannot meet their requirements?
In speaking with Paul Farrell, VP of Industry Product Management at Oracle NetSuite, about the new NetSuite Account Reconciliation, he confirmed to me that current users with a need for only cash management reconciliation would still be able to use the automated reconciliation features found in NetSuite’s cash management functionality.
On the other hand, larger businesses that require the ability to reconcile accounts across their balance sheets would most likely implement NetSuite Account Reconciliation for all their reconciliation requirements.
Farrell also indicated that some mid-sized entities might choose to use both, with cash management personnel continuing with the bank reconciliation functionality for bank and credit statements which would feed directly into NetSuite Account Reconciliation being used by the accounting staff for all the other reconciliations necessary in preparation of closing the books.
So, no matter what size your business is, NetSuite has your reconciliation requirements covered.
NetSuite Account Reconciliation will be available in North America during June 2023. It is expected to be rolled out to international regions starting during the Q3 2023.
Looking for more information on NetSuite Account Reconciliation then check out the official website.
Disclosures:
Feature content (including some visuals) were adapted from Oracle NetSuite source materials, including the official NetSuite Account Reconciliation press release. Source material based content appearing within this Insightful Accountant feature is provided solely for educational purposes.
Oracle NetSuite provides an integrated system including financials, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), inventory management, HR, professional services automation and omnichannel commerce to more than 36,000 customers in 217 countries and territories.
NetSuite and Oracle are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. Oracle Corporation is a publicly-traded NYSE-listed (ORCL) multinational corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas (USA).
Any other trade names used herein may refer to products registered, trademarked or otherwise held by their respective owners. They are referenced solely for informational and educational purposes.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. This article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. No one has paid Insightful Accountant or the author any remuneration to be included within this feature.
The publication of this article does not represent an endorsement by either the author or Insightful Accountant.
Note: Registered Trademark ® symbols have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they would otherwise appear or be repeated. Every attempt is made to credit such trademarked products within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.
Like what you're reading?
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and we'll deliver content like this directly to your inbox.