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Public sector
Cash reconciliation and close
The backlog caught up, then every account and fund reconciled each month from the statements as they arrive, including the ones that only exist as scans.
Who this is for. Finance director, city or county treasurer, or the finance manager who is personally carrying the backlog.
The problem today
Bank reconciliations fall months behind, usually after a vacancy or a system change, and once behind they stay behind. The close waits on the reconciliation, the audit waits on the close, and the finance director is answering questions about a period that has not been reconciled yet.
Catching up is a project nobody has capacity for, because the current month also has to be done. Fund accounting makes it harder: the same bank account carries activity across several funds, so reconciling the bank is only half the work.
What we deliver
The backlog caught up
Past months reconciled as a defined piece of work with an end date, so the team gets back to current rather than running two efforts at once.
Statements read in whatever form they arrive
Including scanned and image-only statements, which is often the specific reason this work had not been automated before.
Reconciliation against the fund ledgers
Bank activity reconciled to the ledger and allocated across funds, so the fund level balances reconcile rather than only the bank total.
Exceptions routed to your staff
Unmatched items go to the person who can resolve them with the statement line and the ledger entry side by side.
Evidence kept for the audit
Each period's reconciliation, its support and the person who approved it, held together and exportable.
Kept current after the catch-up
The monthly reconciliation runs on schedule, so the backlog does not rebuild the next time there is a vacancy.
What agents do, and what your team approves
What the agents do
Agents read the statements including scans, match the transactions, allocate across funds, prepare each reconciliation and isolate the exceptions.
What they never do
Every reconciliation is reviewed and approved by your finance staff, and no adjusting entry is posted without a named person authorising it. The approval record is part of the audit evidence.
Systems we work with
- Tyler
- Caselle
- Excel
- Scanned bank statements
From past work
What we have built
We built bank reconciliation automation for a government entity that reads scanned bank statements directly, catching up a backlog of prior months and then keeping the monthly reconciliation current, with finance staff approving every period.
Questions we get
Can you work from scanned statements?
Yes, and this is usually the deciding question. Many government finance teams receive image-only statements, which is exactly why earlier automation attempts failed. We read the scan and flag anything we cannot read with confidence.
How are funds handled?
Allocation across funds is part of the reconciliation rather than a step after it. Reconciling the bank total while the fund balances stay unproven is the mistake that makes these reconciliations fail audit.
Will our auditors accept the output?
They generally do, because the reconciliation is supported by the statement lines and the ledger entries it was built from, and each period carries the approval of a named member of your staff. We recommend walking your audit firm through the method during the first period rather than at year end.
Do we have to replace our financial system?
No. The current system stays the system of record. That is the point of doing it this way, and it is covered further on the legacy system modernization page.
Related
- Legacy system modernizationModern automation around the systems you already run.
- Month-end close automationThe close runs on a schedule instead of on overtime.
- Document intake and validationDocuments are read, checked and routed without being re-keyed.
- All Public sector workReconciliations are months behind and the auditor is coming.
- How we workRead the books, design for agents, ship them, train your operators, then run and improve.