Sage Line 50 / Sage Instant e-reconcile - it can work well for you

At first sight Sage's e-reconcile option doesn't seem all that attractive. The main reasons for not adopting (in no particular order) are:

1. Banks normally charge extra for the statement files facility;
2. e-reconcile doesn't allow the matching of offsetting receipts and payments records in the cashbook;
3. e-reconcile only allows one-to-many or many-to-one matching - you can't match many-to-many; and,
4. e-reconcile doesn't allow the matching of bank errors and their correction on the bank statement.

All of the above are easily countered:

1. Banks normally charge extra for the statement files facility: My post at e-reconcile for everyone in Sage Line 50 / Sage Instant explains how any bank's basic statement export facility (e.g. CSV, xml or Excel format) can be used in e-reconcile. No extra cost. 
2. e-reconcile doesn't allow the matching of offsetting receipts and payments records in the cashbook: OK, take the receipts and payments you need to clear against each other (because they'll never appear on a bank statement and you don't want them to be listed as outstanding forever) and make sure the net total is zero (say Receipts = £1,000 and Payments = £1,000. Net = Zero). When matching a single payment include the extra payment transactions totalling £1,000 and, when prompted with "Match though totals differ?", click on Yes. Then match a single receipt and include the extra receipt transactions totalling £1,000 and, when prompted with "Match though totals differ?", click on Yes. The two "matching errors" net to zero and everything will be OK.
3. e-reconcile only allows one-to-many or many-to-one matching - you can't match many-to-many: This scenario requires a response similar to 2 above. Higlight the multiple statement items and multiple cashbook items you want to reconcile and make sure the totals are the same. Then de-select all but one statement item and only one cashbook item (noting their transaction numbers for future reference) and match them clicking on Yes when prompted with "Match though totals differ?". Then select the bank statement and cashbook items whose transaction numbers you noted earlier and match them in the same way. The two "matching errors" net to zero and everything will be OK.
4. e-reconcile doesn't allow the matching of bank errors and their correction on the bank statement: To deal with errors on the bank statement (and their corrections) that never appear in the cashbook - post them to the cashbook as soon as the initial error appears on the bank statement. Say erroneous charges of £10 were applied to your account. Enter a journal for £10 Dr (erroneous charge by bank) and £10 Cr (erroneous charge correction awaited from bank) and code both sides to the bank account code. Then reconcile the erroneous charge entry with the bank statement leaving you with an outstanding receipt for £10 (the awaited correction on the bank statement) to reconcile when the correction is actioned by the bank.

e-reconcile has so many advantages, not least the auto-reconcile features and being able to sort both sets of transactions by amount to facilitate the easy identification of matches. If you haven't tried it before why not put a month's bank transactions into the practice company and activate e-reconcile, import a bank statement (remember 1 above) and give it a try. Most people don't go back to manual if they try it.

E-reconcile for everyone in Sage Line 50 / Sage Instant

I was using the manual bank reconciliation feature in Sage Instant Accounts the other day and found it to be a bit laborious marking cash book transactions off one by one.  I don't subscribe to the file transfer module offered by my bank (for an extortionate amount of money) so I thought the e-Banking, e-Reconcile option was out. 

However, then I remembered some work I'd done some considerable time ago where bank accounts with tens of thousands of transactions had to be reconciled in a different software package.  The only statement information available was a csv file containing statement date, reference and amount.  I constructed an Excel macro to create a statement file similar to the ones produced by the bank's file transfer module (http://www-2.danskebank.com/Link/CAPDBUK/$file/CAP_DB_BRAND_UK.pdf) and, hey presto, I was able to import the necessary tens of thousands of bank statement transactions and get to work. 

Thinking about my Sage situation I realised that an ordinary set of transactions saved from my basic electronic banking screens will give me a csv file containing statement date, reference and amount. Consequently, I dusted down the old Excel routine and ran a month's statement transactions through it. I enabled e-Banking within Sage and imported the statement details using the file I'd created.  Now I am able to use the auto reconcile features within Sage!  Nice. Even better, I find that, with a bit of pre-processing in the Excel routine, I can maximise the "full match" (reference and amount) success rate and cut down manual matching to a minimum.

It should be possible to use this methodology for any bank account, so I'm planning to implement this approach for all Sage bank accounts where file transfer facilities don't exist with the bank.  I like to have software do as much work for me as possible so this fits in with my overall stratregy pretty well.

P.S. if you use Sage you may also be interested in this Excel reporting tool I've written - www.onionrs.co.uk. A video is available on YouTube.