10 Dec THE POWER OF AUTOMATIC RECONCILIATION

Bank statement reconciliation is a critical activity for the financial management of any company.

Basically, it is the comparison of a company’s internal record of transactions against the records provided by the bank’ statement: a crucial task to keep track of cash-flow that –if performed manually– can be extremely time-consuming.

Reconciliation is not only a matter of balancing cash-in flows and track the company’s liquidity as it actually  plays a strategic role in finance departments: if automated, this back-office function speeds up treasury operations as a whole and streamlines the entire administrative workflow, improving the company’s efficiency.

Surprisingly, a survey by Ernst&Young revealed that -in the digital age- 3 in 4 European companies with sales over €10 million still reconcile data with pen and paper, or by a manual use of Excel. Moreover, up to 59% of a financial department’s resources are spent on managing transaction-intensive processes, and around 95% of this effort is wasted on already-matching transactions, rather than problem entries that actually require attention.

Here is why a company’s digital transformation must encompass administration, back-office and finance departments.

MyBank, the smart bank transfer with 100% con automatic reconciliation

Integrating a payment solution that provides 100% automatic reconciliation clearly generates added value for any business.

With MyBank, the immediate and irrevocable online wire transfer solution allowing users to pay directly from their bank’s online banking service, a pre-filled form is made available to the payer for a final one-click approval.

Such payment form already contains the relevant order details and the amount information: all necessary data are there and cannot be modified or removed,  contrary to what happens with traditional wire transfers (including those processed online), which can actually be recalled and cancelled within a certain amount of time from when they were sent.

This is not the case for MyBank payments: thanks to its pre-filled wire transfer form, its irrevocability and its real-time confirmation of the completed transaction, it provides companies with immediate certainty of payment and 100% automatic reconciliation, as well as minimised credit-related risks.

“MyBank has enabled the end-to-end (customer–bank–car dealership) automation of our payment process, it eliminates rollbacks and allows us to get immediate confirmation of the irrevocable payment. Real-time information is a crucial element for 100% automatic reconciliation we benefit from with MyBank, which contributes to process efficacy and efficiency. Not only MyBank is even more performing than an instant wire transfer in terms of reach and reconciliation, but it also enables payments with no amount limits, a truly key feature in our business. Last but not least, the immediate payment collection provided by MyBank supports our company cash flow” said Eugenio Di Vita, Accounting & Treasury Manager at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Italia S.p.A.

Camilla Caporusso, Marketing & Communication at VIM, leading player in the distribution of pharmaceutical and para pharmaceutical products on the Italian market, commented: “With the implementation of MyBank, our administration department has successfully optimised human resources duties’ distribution at back-office level, by eliminating a few tasks that were previously made manually. We have been able to offer a better quality of service to our customers, and have achieved better time management as well as streamlined processes”.

“MyBank caught our attention at the time when we were trying to extend time-cost optimisation to our financial  and administrative activities: the two key features that brought us to integrate MyBank were the certainty of the immediate irrevocable transaction and the 100% automatic reconciliation it provides, from which we have been starting benefitting from straight away” said  Sergio Testi, General Director at Gattinoni Travel Network.

Conclusions

Bank reconciliation is crucial for effective financial management in any company. This, as further corporate treasury activities, can be automated thanks to new digital tools for the benefit of the entire company’s performance.

Reconciliation is a complex task that, if performed manually, can be significantly resource-consuming. In corporate accounting departments, the operational time dedicated to manual bank statement reconciliation could be eliminated in favour of other strategic activities better meeting the company’s commercial needs and business objectives.

The adoption and integration of a payment and collection solution like MyBank relieves businesses of difficult data matching, allowing real-time liquidity monitoring and cash-flow optimisation.

In conclusion, by streamlining accounting activities with automatic reconciliation provided by MyBank payments, the whole business can benefit from significant advantages including a positive impact on the quality of the service offered to customers.