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A reconciliation statement is not an accounting formality.
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Once signed by both parties, it acknowledges the debt and interrupts the limitation period; in court, it serves as evidence of the status of the settlements.
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Without it, debt recovery relies solely on primary documents, which may not be sufficient.
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The practical reason is even simpler: the later a discrepancy is found, the more it costs to resolve.
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An unposted document found in the same month is a single accounting entry.
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The same document found a quarter later—a correction in a closed period, an amended return for
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VAT and a conversation with a counterparty whose responsible person has changed. This is where the gap arises between the view that everyone must reconcile monthly
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and how it works in practice: the process is manual and only covers about a dozen major counterparties.
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Once the portfolio exceeds fifty counterparties, selecting a sample is no longer a choice—it becomes a way to avoid doing the work.
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This is the point where reconciliation hand over to the agent: preparation, sending, correspondence, and line-by-line matching, leaving disputed items for a person. ### What this costs the company
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A section for the manager to whom the accountant is showing this material.
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Reconciliation is inherently manual: create the statement, send it, send reminders, wait, make the received version comparable, match the records, explain differences, and follow up until the documents are obtained.
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That is why most companies perform it selectively—for major counterparties and closer to reporting deadlines.
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The rest of the portfolio is not reconciled at all. What should you ask the team: -
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What share of counterparties have a signed reconciliation statement for the last quarter? -
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How many discrepancies were found at month-end—and how many could have been caught during reconciliation? -
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How much time per month is spent corresponding with counterparties about missing closing documents?
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If the answer to the first question is “only major counterparties,” receivables from the rest rely on primary documents without acknowledgment of the debt.
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This is not a matter of accountant discipline: selective reconciliation is driven by the workload involved, not willingness.
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This is where automation comes in: the agent handles the entire cycle—creates the statement, sends it via EDI, manages correspondence, recognizes the response in any format, matches it line by line, explains discrepancies, and passes only disputed items to a person.
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How it works and how much it costs—on the page reconciliation statement automation.
