5 Best Bank Reconciliation System Software: How to Choose?

Every business needs to account for the money coming in and going out of its bank accounts. After all, no business can truly understand whether it is successful, unless it has a complete picture of where every dollar is going.  

Unfortunately, the reconciliation process is both time consuming and tedious. That’s where bank reconciliation system software, like that provided by SolveXia, can be of real benefit to any business.

Coming Up

What is Bank Reconciliation Software?

What Are the Features of Bank Reconciliation Software?

What Are the Benefits of Bank Reconciliation Software?

What is the Best Bank Reconciliation Software?

Final Thoughts

What is Bank Reconciliation Software?

Anyone who has ever been tasked with overseeing a business’ financials knows there are certain key responsibilities that are akin to eating vegetables as a child growing up in that you may not want to do it, but you doing so is absolutely essential to your health.

There is perhaps no better example of these key tasks than bank account reconciliation, which is the balancing of a business’ internal books against the business’ bank account statements

However, where bank reconciliation and eating vegetables differ is that as a business grows, bank reconciliations become more complex and require more effort. This is especially true for businesses with a growing transaction volume, as well as the use of multiple payment providers.

Thankfully, there is a solution: Bank reconciliation system software. These financial tools allow businesses to automate the bank reconciliation process, something which makes life immeasurably easier for accounting staff and the business’ leadership team.

What Are the Features of Bank Reconciliation Software?

Although there are many automated account reconciliation tools available to executives, the best bank reconciliation system software will all have some key features in common.

These features are present in all automated bank reconciliation software because reconciliation would essentially be impossible without them. Examples of these mission critical features include:

1. Reporting

The primary mission of bank reconciliation software is to create a report that explains where the business’ money is coming from, and where it is going.

So, it stands to reason that quality bank reconciliation software must be able to process information such as total incoming revenue, total outgoing revenue and/or discrepancies between the information contained in the bank statements and the company’s internal financial records.

2. Matching

Bank reconciliation is impossible if the software can’t match the transactions listed on a company’s ledger with their corresponding entries on the bank statements.

Without this capability, a reconciliation tool can neither “bless” transactions that appear on both records nor “flag” transactions that do not match with what should be their corresponding record.

That means accounting staff will be stuck with this job, which defeats the purpose of having reconciliation software to begin with.

3. Remote/Cloud Access

The nature of business is growing more global every day. This means bank reconciliation system software must be accessible to employees in different areas at different times.

It is key to have reconciliation software that can operate remotely and store data that is easily accessible to employees. Otherwise, these functions will be limited to the main office, which will hurt efficiency and delay reporting.

4. Powerful Automation/Scalability

Many of the best account reconciliation tools are powered by an advanced AI-enhanced engine that allows the tools to conduct hundreds, or even thousands of functions at the same time.

These engines must be able to handle an increasing volume of transactions and/or the use of multiple payment providers a company grows or expands its operations.

5. Flexibility

Bank account reconciliation is an accounting function, but it also involves numerous different areas of company staff. Everyone from the sales staff to the executive board will be involved with inputting or interpreting the information in a bank reconciliation report.

Because of that, the software needs to be powerful enough to perform all its functions, while also being flexible and user-friendly enough that non-accounting professionals can understand its reporting.

What Are the Benefits of Bank Reconciliation Software?

As businesses expand their global reach and begin accepting multiple currencies or operating in different countries with different accounting procedures, the importance of having reconciliation software increases. So too do the benefits of having bank reconciliation software. Some examples of the benefits that businesses can derive from account reconciliation tools include:

1. Increased Efficiency

Conducting a bank reconciliation with the aid of software like SolveXia’s offers businesses an exponential leap in efficiency in comparison to having an accounting staff manually matching bank statements to ledger entries.

For example, SolveXia enables finance to free up their time by running processes 100x faster with 90% fewer errors. This means that your team will have more time to focus on value-added work rather than tedious manual tasks.

Not only will automated reconciliations be more accurate, they will be completed in less time and can help companies remain in compliance with regulations and reporting requirements.

2. Standardized Process

Automated reconciliations also standardize the process of account reconciliation. When reconciliations are done through an automated tool, you don’t have to worry about offices in different cities using different procedures to conduct their reconciliations or the fact that all your company’s offices don’t operate in the same time zone.

Once you have a bank account reconciliation tool dialed in, all of your company’s finances and reporting will be handled in the same way, regardless of external factors such as staff turnovers or different locations.

3. Automation

The automated process of bank account reconciliation is not only more efficient, it can be used to conduct more complex operations.

In addition to the standard reconciliation reports, you can program bank reconciliation software to automatically collect additional data, all of which can be mined for valuable information about everything from customer preferences to overstocks that need to be eliminated.

It’s also possible to have bank reconciliation software automatically create and email its reports to everyone from customers to regulatory agencies on an as-needed basis.

4. Enhance Your Capabilities

Conducting an efficient bank reconciliation is more than just a means to its own end. When it can be done in an automated fashion, the leadership structure of a company and their analytical staff can spend more time planning and less time crunching numbers.

In the old days, a multinational company would have to spend weeks reconciling its accounts and the management staff would be stuck in limbo until this vital work was done. With reconciliation software, this process can take place in a matter of minutes, or several hours.  

What is the Best Bank Reconciliation Software?

Bank reconciliation software is like any other business in that the market is crowded with options. With that said, most businesses want to access the best software because it will make the reconciliation process that much easier and more efficient.

We took at look at some of the top software on the market and our best reconciliation software options are:

1. SolveXia

SolveXia offers business one of the most powerful tools available for bank reconciliation. This is a no-code, drop and drag solution that allows accounting staff to conduct even the most complex reconciliations with the push of a button.

SolveXia is also compatible out of the box with existing software or financial recording data sets that companies relied upon prior to installing SolveXia. There’s no IT team needed to be up and running.

This means there will be seamless integration between the old reporting and the information provided by SolveXia. Additionally, SolveXia is a cloud-based tool, which allows staff to use it from anywhere in the world and have the information updated automatically across the entire company.

By combining and manipulating data, SolveXia performs calculations and creates interactive reports, analytics and smart dashboards for richer insights for your stakeholders.

2. Blackline

Blackline offers mid to large sized companies a reliable, well-respected tool for conducting bank account reconciliations. It has a strong AI engine that can easily match transactions and flag discrepancies. Blackline also allows users to download its reports into a CSV file and then update them in excel.

Although it’s compatible with popular accounting software like SAP and Netsuite, Blackline is not a no-code solution and typically requires significant effort by a company’s IT staff to integrate, implement and then use.

3. Autorek

Autorek is one of the more respected account reconciliation tools on the market. It offers users a cloud-based solution that can perform billions of transactions per hour; and all with a fully customizable user dashboard. This tool’s robust capabilities and cost-effectiveness make it a popular option with the financial services industry.

4. Xero

Xero is an accounting software that offers users a bank reconciliation component. For small to medium sized businesses that do not conduct more than 2,000 transactions per month, Xero offers a user-friendly, cloud-based solution to bank reconciliations.

It also offers e-commerce business owners some strong inventory management capabilities. On the negative side, Xero’s mobile app is not the most functional and there is no direct customer service number to call when you need immediate solutions to an issue.  

5. Quickbooks

Quickbooks is the proverbial “elder statesman” or “legacy” option when it comes to accounting and  bank reconciliation software. This program has been assisting business small owners with functions like account reconciliations for decades, and earned a solid reputation for doing so.

It’s easy to use out of the box and many small to medium size businesses can work with from the inception of their business through periods of sustained growth.

However, Quickbooks’ origins as a small business software limit its capabilities in terms of conducting large scale bank reconciliations. It doesn’t back data up automatically and the direct customer support can be lacking or larger operations.

Final Thoughts

Bank reconciliation is a necessary evil for any business, however that doesn’t mean bank reconciliation has to be a tortuous process.

By using bank reconciliation system software, businesses can automate their reconciliations, ensure regulatory compliance and allow the company’s leadership to use their brain power on more critical functions such as interpreting data instead of collecting it.

SolveXia offers a powerful combination of low-cost, high performance, out of the box scalability and no-code user-friendliness that allow it to effectively serve businesses of any size.

Add that to its compatibility with almost all existing software, plus no need to use IT, and you may have the ideal bank reconciliation software solution. Click here to book a demo, and discover how SolveXia can take the pain out of your bank reconciliations.