Best Way to Handle Payment Reconciliation

08-05-2022 9:36pm #1

I'm just wondering what the best way to handle payment reconciliation is.

It's approaching end of year for my first company accounts, and the accountant recommended that I think about payment reconciliation.

I assumed that an accountancy company would offer such a service, to help clients deal with this. In my case, it's perhaps a little frustrating - but I guess I may be overstating this.

Is this kind of work normally outsourced to a third-party? I hope so, as I haven't been keeping reconciliation efforts between what payments come in, and what payments enter my company account.

I now need to sort this out - and assumed I would do it myself. Now I'm thinking I made a mistake to leave it to the end of the year and wondering if perhaps I can hire someone to do this work for me? If so, are there standard rates I should know about?

Clearly, there's always the risk of audits being performed and I want my accounts to be as clean as possible. However, at this stage I'm unsure how to best deal with this payment reconciliation issue and so I appeal to the experience of those on this thread to direct me in the right direction.

eusap · 09-05-2022 1:50pm

Are you using any accounts package?

How many transactions per week/per month?

Assume you have issued an invoice and want to reconciled you received payment?

Are you vat registered?

10-05-2022 6:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119036313#Comment_119036313

Nope, not using any accounts package.

Perhaps 9-15 transactions a day.

Yes, I've been recommended to reconcile payments/invoices with what is received. I've yet to start, but need to know how to do this. Preferably, I'd rather just pay someone to do it, but during a cursory glance earlier, there doesn't seem to be much by way of service provision.

Accountant said that, in my particular case, I don't need to be VAT registered for the service I provide.

eusap · 10-05-2022 9:00am

then you need a simple ledger to show

A: Invoice Number/Amount/Date,

B: Payment Received Amount/Date,

C: Bank Lodgement Date.

You can pick up ledger books in any stationary store

squigglestrebor · 10-05-2022 9:04am

Just stick it all up on excel , it sounds basic enough.

squigglestrebor · 10-05-2022 9:05am

The accountant needs it at least attempted before they do your accounts , the messier it goes up to them the more they charge.

10-05-2022 10:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039667#Comment_119039667

How would an excel work though?

Don't you need to have files of all invoices etc?

All my work is through online memberships etc.

Moreover, just for educational reasons, why does any accountant require it "at least attempted" before they do accounts? I would have assumed that this layer of detail is only of interest to those who need to audit a company.

ThreeGreens · 30-06-2022 1:25pm

Best thing to do is to ask your accountant how they want it done!

Ask them to sit down with you and show they the layout that they suggest and do the first one or two transactions with you so that you can continue on from there.

30-06-2022 1:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119271240#Comment_119271240

Is it not possible to hire someone to do this task?

I'm busy with my own stuff, and this kind of thing distracts me from the work I'm actually good at.

I'm actually surprised why this isn't offered as a service by accountancy firms, to be honest. It's a God-awful, hateful thing to do.

SureYWouldntYa · 30-06-2022 3:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119271367#Comment_119271367

What you need is a bookkeeper so. You have too many transactions for an accountancy firm to do the work, it's more the sort of thing a book-keeper would do. Their rates would also be far lower than an accountancy firm, you're looking at the range of 20-35 an hour

Lots of people like to do it themselves because once you're in the swing of it then it's just monotonous work, but it can be outsourced and if it is distracting you from your real work then definitely engage with a bookkeeper

30-06-2022 4:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119272089#Comment_119272089

And just wondering do book-keepers work from the level of accessing accounts and finding things for you?

For instance; I own some sites where people become registered members and so on. So we are talking many hundreds of transactions per month. All are online, and payments go through PayPal and Stripe before going into the company bank account.

However, many payments are "bundled" together; for instance, you could have a payment of 500 euros from PayPal which is actually composed of many different registered members, but that payment only goes into the bank as 1 amount.

That's what I'm finding a bit time consuming and complicated about this.

Even if a book-keeper was involved, would they be able to work through all of this without my assistance?

I'm unsure at what level in the above process they'd work with.

SureYWouldntYa · 30-06-2022 5:56pm

In that case, you would give the bookkeeper your bank statements, they'd be able to process the full bank. Usually the primary source of data in the accounts will be the bank statements.

For the €500 that comes from Paypal/Stripe, you could give them a summary from Paypal and Stripe, there would be transactions summaries available on both of these. If all transactions were the same nature, they could probably just have the €500 from Paypal that is one entry into your bank account go straight into sales as one entry. The summary of the 500 individual transactions would just be the backup that proves the €500.

If the lodgements were of a different nature they could analysed into their different places. It could work the same as if you spent €600 in Currys, €500 on a laptop and €100 on ink would be posted to 2 different places in your accounts.

Best Way to Handle Payment Reconciliation

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