Working with Cash & Bank

Cash & Bank reads the money that moved through your bank and card accounts and compares it with your books and your approvals. It works from the statements and transactions in your Data Room, reports whatever does not match, and shows the amount in dollars. This page is how to work with it from day to day.

What to put in the Data Room

One bank statement is sufficient to begin. Add it as a PDF with Add to Data Room, and it sits beside Contracts and Agreements and Invoices, listed under Bank statements on the module's Data Room tab. From one statement two payment checks run: a payment made twice, and a payment of an unusual size or to an unusual payee. Two more read your approval limits from your Organisational context and the bank details on each supplier's Record: a payment above your limit, and a payment to an account that differs from the Record. When a Connection brings in your books as well, every transaction is matched to an entry in them, so the bank and the books can be compared at month end.

Add the remaining documents as you have them, because each one lets another check finish. Card transactions let the card checks run: a recurring charge with no owner, a charge above your receipt threshold, and a charge outside your card policy. Your receipt threshold is the amount above which a card charge needs a receipt. Add the receipts and invoices for card charges too, so a charge above that amount has one behind it. Your approval limits and your card policy are not documents; the module asks for them only when a check needs them.

Add documents with Add to Data Room, as PDFs, or let a Connection bring the transactions in. A transaction a Connection brings in is examined the same way as one on a statement you added. Open the module's Data Room tab to see the bank transactions, card transactions and statements it has drawn on. The Data Room explains where documents live and what each kind is for, and Connections lists what you can connect today.

When it asks you a question

Cash & Bank asks you nothing when you add it. It asks a question only when a check needs the answer, and until then it uses a sensible default and names it in the finding, so you can correct it when it matters. Five questions can arise: how many days a bank item may sit unmatched before you want to hear about it, how many times bigger than normal a payment must be to count as unusual, any account where large regular payments are normal, such as a payroll account, who owns each recurring charge on your cards, and any rules for card spend, such as a category limit or a blocked merchant. Until you answer, an item may wait 30 days, and a payment three times the normal size counts as unusual.

A question arrives as a needs-information finding in the Findings list, and as a card in Ask Ressura. Your answer becomes an entry in your Organisational context, with your name and the date on it, and the check runs again automatically. The days an item may wait, the unusual multiple and your card policy apply to the whole module. An account you name as large by nature, and the owner of a recurring charge, apply to that account or card only.

How to read a finding

The module's Overview shows Unreconciled, the sum of the bank transactions in the period that match nothing in your books. Reconciled means matched to the books, and an item you have listed as still to be matched does not count. Beneath it is the list of Bank accounts, each with its balance, its unreconciled amount and its count of unmatched items. Its Findings tab lists every finding: the bank account, the Control that produced it, its kind, the amount where there is one, the confidence, its disposition and the date. Choose Review finding to open one.

An exception says what the bank shows, what your books or your approvals show, and the difference. An unmatched transaction, one your books have no entry for, is shown with its amount and how many days it has waited. A payment exception names the payee, the account paid and the account on the supplier's Record. Its provenance shows the bank row, the entry in your books and the Record or context entry it was compared with, each with its date, so you can check the arithmetic yourself. When a finding leans on a default rather than a value you gave, it says so.

A needs-information finding names the document or the answer that would let a check finish, such as the statement missing for a month, the owner of a recurring charge, or the approver of a payment above your limit. It never blocks the other checks. A fraud-risk finding comes from Fraud Watch and links the findings behind it. The Checks tab shows each of the nine Controls with its pass, exception and needs-information counts for the period.

How to disposition a finding

You answer a finding in one of three ways, and each answer is recorded with your name and the date. Accept an exception when the bank is right and the books are not, such as a payment your books never recorded, and add a note if you like. Reject it with the reason when the transaction was fine, such as a payment to a new account you confirmed with the supplier by phone. The reason becomes a context entry, scoped to this finding, this bank account, this module or the whole company, so the same point is never raised twice. Answer a needs-information finding by adding the statement or receipt it asks for, or by typing the answer, such as the owner of a recurring charge. The check then runs again.

A bank account's own page, under Bank accounts, gathers its findings, its statements and its context entries in one place. It also shows the bank, the type of account, the account in your books it is matched to, and the date it was last reconciled, that is, last agreed to the books. Findings and Dispositions has the rules every module shares, including the two-person rule for rejecting a fraud-risk finding.

What it costs

Running its checks, opening a finding and dispositioning one cost nothing, and checking the same documents again is free.

This page is the how-to. The Cash & Bank page says why it exists and what it checks.