Quotes from a RDA customer who recently started using Bank Rec:
“In the past, the city manager would ask how much money we had in our bank account. People would end up pulling up the online statement as this was the best information we had. We did not know what type of checks or deposits were outstanding when we pulled that up. A lot of the time this caused issues.”
“Knowing that the balance sheet and bank balance are correct is one of the biggest advantages. Knowing that the bank balance is correct puts you at ease that the revenue and expenditures were also probably done correctly.”
“Bank rec is very important, especially in a tight cash flow situation.”
“In today’s environment, bank rec is extremely important with all of the bank fraud that can happen. There was a situation where two $9,000 wires were fraudulently deducted from our account and we might not have noticed if we were not balancing our bank accounts.”
Why use OpenRDA’s Bank Rec module?
One module every RDA customer has access to but may choose not to use is the Bank Reconciliation module. Using Bank Rec in OpenRDA has many benefits and is quick and easy to do! You can set up Bank Rec with as many bank accounts as required for your organization. Each account is then mapped to the corresponding G/L account(s). From Bank Rec you are able to view the bank statement balance, the G/L book balance, and outstanding checks and/or deposits.
Bank Rec will also help detect errors made by bank tellers such as a teller depositing a check into the wrong account. Additionally, it is not uncommon for banks to transpose a number or have a completely different number listed for a deposit or check. Many times bank transfers, checks, and other transactions are duplicated by the bank and end up hitting the bank balance more than once. By keeping your bank accounts reconciled, you can easily find these mistakes and contact the bank to have them corrected.
Bank Rec also helps to ensure the integrity of your organization’s data. For example, if something was not entered to the correct bank account or perhaps wasn’t entered at all, Bank Rec would provide record of those discrepancies. When reconciling at month end, you would be out of balance alerting the need to make a change to the incorrect transaction(s).
Unfortunately, many organizations have found themselves falling victim to fraud by one of their own employees or an outside party. Having an up to date and accurate bank reconciliation can aid in detecting and preventing intentional fraud. This will help detect payments for illegitimate purposes and also payments to unauthorized employees or vendors. Having these controls in place can help discourage fraudulent activity within your organization.
Another major benefit of using the Bank Rec module is knowing the true amount of cash on hand. While a bank statement might say that the total in the account is $100,000, there could be $99,000 of outstanding checks at the end of the month. With this pivotal knowledge, you can make better informed decisions and ultimately protect your accounts from the threat of overdraft.
These are just some of the many ways that using the Bank Reconciliation module in OpenRDA can make your life easier. It will give your organization piece of mind on your bank and general ledger balances and save a significant amount of time in the process. If you have any questions or want to learn more about Bank Reconciliation please give us a call at 1-800-338-4984, email us at support@rdasys.com, or put in a help desk ticket!
