A User-Friendly Bank Reconciliation Automation Solution
Ireland’s leading builders’ merchants & home improvement specialists, with over 50 branches nationwide.
Chadwicks Group have been supplying building materials to homes, hotels, farms, transportation networks, and all other types of businesses across Ireland for more than 200 years, thanks to their unparalleled knowledge and experience in the construction industry.
They are a business with a long history and tradition. Similarly to Cashbook, they are also building for the future by embracing automation which resulted in reaching out to us to transform their bank reconciliation process to experience the difference we make every day for finance teams.
Challenge
Prior to the Cashbook implementation, here is some background information of what situation the Chadwicks Group team were in. Below are the challenges that Chadwicks Group faced with their previous bank reconciliation automation vendor that ultimately made them turn to Cashbook.
- There had been no development in their previous system since installation.
- There were no updated matching rules to account for any changes in transaction referencing resulting in manual matching.
- Support was poor & there were long delays in response times due to different time zones.
- They were looking for a system that updates journals to their general ledger daily.
Background
This project was a Bank Statement items to General Ledger (GL) reconciliation. It consisted of two Bank Accounts but each account had a separate GL feed, one from SUN Systems and the second from Accustar. In addition to the bank statement, Cashbook had to work with two Supplementary files supplied by a Cash Processing (CP) company. The only other variable was posting back to SUN Systems. This was needed for write off differences, GL reversals and items appearing on the bank statement with no GL entry.
Solution
Below are the ways Cashbook works best specifically for Chadwicks Group.
Increased Features
- Cashbook GL portal configured to import general ledger items (two feeds). Job schedule set up so this is an automated service that can run multiple times during the day.
- One bank format used to upload both bank statements and a second format to upload both supplementary files.
- Bank format enhancers allows Cashbook to create a Posting Journal based on predefined references within the bank statement. Cashbook auto assigns each transaction with their unique ledger code ready for posting back to SUN.
- Supplementary file enhancer. This is used for the daily CP file that can contain 100s of transactions. Instead of trying reconcile one bank deposit to multiple GL lines we upload the CP file and do a one-to-one match. With this enhancer we create a negative sum total of the CP transactions and net it against the bulk bank deposit.
Reconcilers Used During this Project
- Exact Match – One to One matching on amount provided the Bank and GL reference match. Multiple variations of this rule was used.
- Match With Difference – we stamp the method upon reconciling waiting for the difference to come back on the GL and then match off. Cashbook auto allocates all write offs to a GL code when creating Posting Journal.
- One to Many – Used to reconcile one Bank item to multiple GL items.
- Many to Many – Used when there is multiple items on both sides to match.
- Netting – Used for netting transactions to zero either on the Bank or GL side.
Expanding the Posting Process
During this project we expanded our posting process which was a requirement by the customer having the ability to receive an Acknowledgment File from SUN.
- When Journals are posted from Cashbook to SUN they go into a status of processing until we receive a successful Acknowledgement file back, then it goes to a posted status.
- If we receive an error Acknowledgement the Journal is re-opened for user to correct.
- Acknowledgement files can be viewed and message read in each Journal attachments.
Benefits of Regular Reconciliation
- Makes financial audits smoother and faster.
- Greater visibility of daily, weekly and monthly bank balance.
The Chadwicks Group are a fantastic company and the staff have been a dream to work with, a special shoutout to Ellen Conry, Leanne Kelly and Ashley Blair. We plan to strengthen our relationship with them for many years to come involving on-site visits for business and for friendship purposes. With a brand as big as Chadwicks Group in Ireland, we couldn’t be happier to have them as a customer.
Results
Cashbook were able to build a system to incorporate our requirements providing the business with a user friendly bank reconciliation software.
