Your Bank Reconciliation Agent Pinpoints Every Reconciling Difference
The Bank Reconciliation Agent in EngageSuite360 matches every cleared transaction against the ledger, sorts deposits in transit and outstanding checks into the right period, asks the client about the items only they can explain, and hands your staff a discrepancy report that names the exact transactions behind any difference. The staff accountant who used to spend an afternoon tracing a small difference reviews a finished reconciliation instead.
What it takes off your plate
Ask any bookkeeper which part of the month they dread. Bank recs. The statement balance and the ledger balance disagree by a small amount, and finding out why means tracing individual transactions back through weeks of activity. A deposit made on the last day of the month is recorded in the wrong period. A check to a vendor shows as outstanding month after month, and nobody asks the client whether it was lost, voided or never mailed.
Unidentified deposits sit in a suspense account because nobody knows what they are. The client does, but nobody has asked. When the partner reviews the file, the reconciliation balances, but only because of an adjustment nobody can fully explain. That adjustment carries forward into the next month, and the next, until a lender, a buyer or a tax examiner asks what it is, and the firm has to reconstruct a story from old bank statements.
What the Bank Reconciliation Agent does, step by step
It starts with the questions only the client can answer.
- Asks about unknown deposits. When a deposit does not match any invoice or expected receipt, the agent emails or texts the client the date, amount and bank description and asks what it was, then records the answer for the accountant.
- Follows up on stale checks. For checks outstanding longer than your firm's threshold, it asks the client whether the payee received it, whether it should be reissued or voided, and logs the reply. Decisions about voiding checks and any unclaimed property obligations go to the accountant and the partner.
- Requests missing statements. If a statement is missing or a feed has a gap, it asks the client to download and upload the statement, and follows up until it arrives.
- Matches cleared items. Behind those conversations, it matches cleared transactions from the bank feed or statement to ledger entries in QuickBooks or Xero, by amount, date, payee and reference.
- Sorts the timing items. It identifies deposits in transit and outstanding checks, confirms they cleared in the following period where that data is available, and flags any that were recorded in the wrong month.
- Pinpoints the difference. If the reconciliation does not balance, it produces a discrepancy report listing the specific transactions causing it: a transposed amount, a duplicate entry, a transaction missing from the ledger. Proposed corrections go to the accountant for approval.
Where the work is recorded
Every reconciliation the Bank Reconciliation Agent prepares is saved in the ledger with its supporting report, and summarized on the engagement in EngageSuite360: accounts reconciled, items outstanding and their age, questions sent to the client and the answers received, and corrections proposed and approved. The client business record shows which questions are still waiting on the client.
The next morning, the staff accountant opens one view: reconciliations ready for review, differences with their causes identified, stale items awaiting a client answer, and statements still missing. The partner sees every bank and credit card account reconciled, or exactly why one is not.
What your people do instead
Your staff accountants review reconciliations and approve corrections rather than hunting for transactions. They spend the reclaimed time understanding each client business and catching the issues that matter, such as a pattern of duplicate payments or a vendor paid twice. Your partner talks to the client about cash flow instead of about a suspense account. Clients get books they can rely on. The Bank Reconciliation Agent keeps the questions, matching and reports moving around them.
Reconciled cash accounts feed the returns described in Deploy the Sales Tax Filing Agent and Reclaim Your Month-End Close, and year-end documents are gathered by Your Benefits Administration Agent Catches Every COBRA Event on Time.
One next step
EngageSuite360 is a CRM shaped for accounting firms, with clients, client businesses, engagements and prospects built in, and the EngageSuite360 Bank Reconciliation Agent works on those same records. See EngageSuite360 for accounting and reconcile every account to the transaction.
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