What are General Ledger Reconciliations?
General ledger reconciliations (or GL reconciliations) refers to the processes around the business satisfying itself that is general ledger balances are supported. In the main, the emphasis is on balance sheet accounts but the process can also cover income and expenditure accounts. For most businesses, income and expenditure accounts are simply reviewed in line with prior periods experience or the anticipated values (budget variance analysis).
What type of GL reconciliations can there be?
General ledger (balance sheet in the main) reconciliations comprise:
- Reconciliations to underlying records held in modules or in line of business systems
- Reconciliations to third party confirmations like supplier statements, bank statements, custodians
- Reconciliations to other general ledger accounts like intercompany accounts?
- Reconciliations to a manual analysis such as sundry debtors, accruals or HP liabilities
- Suspense accounts where a complex contra reconciliation may be required
Why are they difficult?
They can be difficult because:
- General Ledger Reconciliations are often very voluminous
- Some records are not open item and roll forward balances
- Records do not include much information about the transactions
- Bulk amounts may make up many individual items in a company’s records
- Bulk amounts in general ledgers that comprise lots of individual items in the other record
- Timing differences can be quite significant
- Cut-off integrity may be difficult or compromised (or even non-existent) in line of business systems
- Contra Exchange rates may vary between the internal accounting systems and the other record
How does AutoRek help?
Our automated reconciliation software reduces manual effort by over 75%. We import data from the general ledger (or virtually any source), we enrich it, we disaggregate (explode) it, we match it and we report and escalate the outcomes.
Find Out More
To discover how we can help your organisation’s bank sheet reconciliation processes, arrange a demonstration of AutoRek’s General Ledger Reconciliation Software.
Alternatively, download the following related resource: Why You Should Automate Reconciliations
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