In the old days you used to have to wait for the paper bank statements to come in once a month to be able to reconcile your cash account.  A friend of mine once joked that was the favorite day of the month for this accountant.  Not so anymore.  There’s no need to wait for the paper.  You can get the information online.  Now, I can tell my friend, “Everyday is a terrific day ‘cause you can be reconciled everyday if you want.”

I’m surprised at the number of companies that are still waiting for the paper.  And by bank accounts, I’m not just referring to the traditional checking account or investment accounts, but also perhaps even as important as well too can be the credit card accounts.  There you can download the transaction and get them posted into your system or perhaps download them into an Excel spreadsheet and then summarize the information and post it once a month.

So why bother to keep in touch quite so often:

1.  Transactions might happen that somehow don’t get posted in your system.  It could be the manual checks that got written to meet a particular need, like an advance to an employee or a supplier that needed to be taken care of.

2.  Sometimes mistakes can happen on the bank side too.  Not often, but it’s easier to figure out if you’re on top of things.

3.  You can break the reconciliation down into smaller chunks.  Instead of having 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, you turn it into a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle.  It could be you don’t have to do it everyday, but perhaps on a weekly basis doing the bank reconciliation through the online could make it go much quicker for you.

So let your competitors wait for the paper.  Operate the speed of the internet and keep tabs on your cash online.

Jon Paul, MBA, CPA, CMC, CM&AA

President, Value Added Finance Resources
Bringing new insights on results and maximizing company value