What is General Ledger GL Reconciliation: Process, Steps, Examples and Best Practices
Unfortunately for most teams, there are almost always some irreconcilable differences each month. It provides a clear trail of the steps taken and the adjustments made, ensuring transparency and accountability in your financial reporting. This includes the original transaction records, notes on discrepancies, and copies of adjusting journal entries. Having accurate and comprehensive records helps in cross-verifying transactions and balances. Without these documents, reconciliation becomes guesswork, leading to potential errors. These examples highlight the importance of regular reconciliation across various aspects of financial management, a fundamental step for ensuring that every financial transaction is accurately recorded and verified.
Step 2: Identify Reconciliation Items
A practical example of general ledger reconciliation is comparing the balance in a company’s bank account with the balance shown on the bank statement. General ledger reconciliation is the process of verifying the accuracy and consistency of account balances in the general ledger. Here, a business verifies its account receivables by comparing invoiced amounts to what’s recorded in the general ledger. This may also include reaching out to customers for confirmation of their recorded balances, enhancing the accuracy of receivables.
Lack of Review and Approval Processes
General ledger reconciliation is a method where accountants validate the completeness and accuracy of account balances in a firm’s general ledger. A general ledger can be divided into sub-ledgers to track detailed information about specific types of transactions, such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, and fixed assets. A general ledger is the central repository of all financial transactions within an organisation. It includes various accounts that track assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses. Inventory reconciliation involves comparing the quantities and values of inventory recorded in your general ledger with physical inventory counts and other inventory Food Truck Accounting records. Investigate the root causes of discrepancies by tracing transactions, verifying source documents, and communicating with relevant stakeholders.
Challenges in general ledger reconciliation
- You have to be able to dive deeper into them individually so you can better reconcile items that don’t match.
- Failure to record all relevant transactions in the general ledger, such as missed deposits, payments, or invoices, can result in understated or overstated account balances.
- Check out Nanonets Reconciliation where you can easily integrate Nanonets with your existing tools to instantly match your books and identify discrepancies.
- It allows you to create and track all financial records connected to a transaction and the changes made to them — not just their end state.
- Automating reconciliations can significantly reduce the risk of fraud and errors, while also freeing up accountants to focus on higher-value tasks that contribute to strategic business decisions.
• Clearly call out discrepancies on the balance sheet by documenting variances in account balances. This ensures that reconciling items are easily identifiable, facilitating timely resolution and enhancing the accuracy of financial statements. General ledger reconciliation is a key accounting process that involves verifying that the balances in your general ledger are accurate and match external documents and workpapers. In doing so, teams ensure that their financial records are correct and reliable.
There are a few reasons subledger to general ledger reconciliation is so complicated. It’s easy to manipulate or delete transaction data, especially when Excel is used as a bridge between source data and the general ledger. A fat finger error here, an engineering mistake there, or a report pulled an hour earlier than normal and missing some of yesterday’s transaction, and all your calculations are skewed. ” In this instance, GL recs are the rectangle; balance sheet recs are the square. Documenting each reconciliation improves accountability, transparency and bookkeeping facilitates auditing.
This article explains what general ledger (GL) account reconciliation is, the processes and best practices. By deriving insights directly from the general ledger, Bunker equips you with the information needed to assess financial performance accurately. This level of visibility enables you to make informed decisions that drive your organization forward. Bunker is a cutting-edge financial analytics tool that provides unparalleled insights into your general ledger data. With its user-friendly interface and plug-and-play functionality, Bunker simplifies complex financial analysis, empowering you to make data-driven decisions confidently.
Improving Compliance
Nigel Sapp is a content marketer at Numeric, partnering with top accountants to break down best practices, thorny accounting topics, and helping teams navigate the world of accounting tech. For teams on Numeric, a full audit trail of preparer, reviewers, comments, and action taken will automatically be stored. Automation is an excellent option if you want general ledger reconciliation to streamline your general ledger reconciliation process.
Then over time as the company matures, they should aim to increase the percentage of accounts reconciled to ensure full confidence across the general ledger. By being aware of these common errors and implementing adequate controls and best practices, organizations can enhance the accuracy and efficiency of their general ledger reconciliation process. For each item that makes up your GL reconciliation balance, present them on a separate tab, noting the location of the source documents in case a manager or auditor needs to verify. Instead of hardcoding, link each item on the leadsheet to each item on the independent source document tabs. Failure to record all relevant transactions in the general ledger, such as missed deposits, payments, or invoices, can result in understated or overstated account balances.
Conclusion: Ensuring Accuracy in Financial Reporting
As per the records, there is a discrepancy of over US$ 40,000 (shown in RED) between ‘invoice raised’ and the actual entries in the accounts. This shows a significant gap that can distort the company’s finances, if not taken care of during the reconciliation process. Bunker offers numerous features that can significantly enhance your financial analysis capabilities. You can make more informed strategic decisions by gaining a granular understanding of your financial data at the transaction level. Additionally, Bunker streamlines your accounting processes, improving efficiency and accuracy.