Reconciliation - The Three Types
There are three ways to reconcile in Resident:
- Basic - Manual Input
- Standard - Import from CSV
- Advanced - Bank Feeds
Before you begin: Ensure that your bank account is set up for the option you require. You can find this option by navigating to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Bank Accounts’. Here you can open the account you require and you will see the option for ‘Reconciliation Type’.
If you are using global bank accounts please replace the instructions ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Transactions’ throughout this guide with 'Branch Finance' > 'Transactions List' and ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Bank Accounts’ with 'Branch Finance' > 'Bank Accounts'.
Basic - Manual Input
Manual Reconciliation is a solution created for Resident clients who do not wish to upload Bank Transactions or use Bank Feeds.
Once the Bank Account's reconciliation is set up we can navigate to 'Branch Finance' > Supplier Invoices' for supplier invoices and 'Branch Finance' > Unit Invoices' for Leaseholder demands.
On these pages we simply need to click the money icon to record a manual payment.
A pop-up window will appear and we can fill this out with any details needed. Once filled out we can simply click 'Create' and this will mark the invoice/demand as paid. The invoice will now move from the 'Outstanding/Pending' to the 'Paid' tab
We can change this to Online or Automatic in Accounts/Bank Accounts/Transactions at any time.
PLEASE NOTE: you can change from manual to another type of reconciliation but once you have reconciled any transactions in a different manner then you cannot change back as it will cause duplications.
Import method for Standard - Import from CSV
Online is the most common reconciliation type for now. This type allows us to upload bank transactions onto Resident using CSV files downloaded from our bank.
We start by downloading the CSV file and saving it onto our computer. Now we navigate to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Transactions’. Here we click ‘More Actions’ and select ‘Import Bank Statement’. Here we must select the account this is coming from, click the ‘Choose File’ button and select the bank file.
As with the Units & Owners and other imports we will get a preview but this one has a slight difference.
Since all banks have a different way of exporting statements there will be differing orders to the layout. The preview will give us the opportunity to make sure that the headings are correct for each column so that it uploads correctly. We must take our time making sure that these are correct before we complete the import. Headings and content are as follows:
Date: This column should contain the incoming/outgoing date.
Description: This column should contain the description we would like to import.
Amount: The should be selected only if the bank file combines both credit and debit amounts into one column. This cannot be used for balance.
Amount Debit & Amount Credit: These two heading should be used with debit and credit only if they are split between two columns on the bank file.
None: Use this heading on all other columns.
WARNING: Make sure these headings are correct before you proceed as importing the wrong content under the wrong heading can cause a lot of clean-up.
Once we have imported these we can go back to the ‘transactions’ page and they will be there.
Import method for Advanced - Bank Feeds
This allows us to pull data directly from the bank. If you are interested in this please contact hello@resident.uk.com for more information.
Reconciliation method for both Standard - Import from CSV and Advanced - Bank Feeds:
To begin reconciling we navigate to 'Block' > 'Block Accounts' > 'Transactions. Here we click ‘More Actions’ and select ‘Bank Reconciliation’.
Here we will see all transactions laid out on the left of the screen. On the right we will see the options we have for reconciliation. If the transaction is a credit then these options will refer to leaseholder invoices or credits and supplier refunds. If the transaction is a debit then the opposite will be true.
To begin we click the blue ‘Assign Invoice Payment’ button to assign the transaction to an invoice. In the first box we will be able to choose the unit/supplier. If the Unit/Supplier we are reconciling is grey and cannot be selected this will be due to one of the following reasons:
- There are no invoices for this Unit/Supplier
- All invoices for this Unit/Supplier are fully reconciled
- The invoice we are trying to reconcile is assigned to a different bank account
Once we have selected the Unit/Supplier we can then locate the invoice we want to reconcile and select 'New Payment' to assign a new payment to the invoice and reconcile it.
If you are linking to manually reconciled payments: If you have already marked a demand/invoice as paid or have previously manually reconciled a demand then, instead of 'New Payment', you will see the payment previously created as shown below. Simply choose the correct payment to link and continue with the remaining steps.
Once we have chosen both the Unit/Supplier and invoice we can go ahead and type in the amount we are reconciling up to the maximum amount of the transaction. Now we can click 'Assign' to register this action. If we have reconciled less than the maximum amount we can add more items before clicking 'Save'. See further down for information on this. Once we are happy we can click 'Save' and this transaction will disappear from the reconciliation page if the full amount has been reconciled. If it has not been met then the transaction will remain on the reconciliation page partially reconciled until complete.
The Orange ‘Add Ledger Item’ will create a ledger item against a unit or the whole block. This is best used for cases like bank charges etc.
Counter Party: This is the person/place we received the money from or sent it to.
Description: Description of ledger item
Category: The category we will be assigning this to
Property: We can choose whether this relates to a whole block or an individual apartment
Schedule: This is optional. We can link it with any schedule used e.g. for budget
The ‘More Actions’ button will show two menus depending on whether the transaction is a debit or credit. See below:
Credit
PLEASE NOTE: Credits assigned to Leaseholders will be deducted from the next invoice with the same category.
Debit
The difference between ‘Assign’ and ‘Create’ depends on whether the refund/credit has already been manually added to the account. If it has then ‘Assign’ is the correct selection.
Once we have created the reconciliation we can click ‘Assign’ and either click ‘Save’ or add another to the same transaction if there is still some funds left. We can add as many of these as we would like. They will simply stack like so:
Once we have reconciled all transactions we wish to reconcile we can navigate back to the transaction page and we will be able to see that they are reconciled by the tick in the 'Rec. Status' column.
If we want to see what a transaction is reconciled to we can click the 'Action' icon:
This will bring up the reconcile information.
Here we can un-reconcile this by clicking the cross icon on the top right and updating.
The Global Reconciliation Page
The global reconciliation page is the place we can see a list of any of your accounts with un-reconciled bank transactions or payments. From here we can also directly access the bank reconciliation or transaction screen for each account. If we want to reconcile accounts for multiple blocks this would be the most convenient place to start.
We can access to this from the Global Dashboard by clicking the actions icon on the upper right tile called 'Bank Accounts'.
This will take us to a list of all our Bank Accounts.
PLEASE NOTE: The 'Number of Transactions' column includes only un-reconciled Bank Transactions. It does not include un-reconciled Payments or Credits added manually.
The action column will take us directly to Bank Reconciliation (bank icon) or the Transactions page (note icon).
When we are done with our Reconciliation we can simply click 'Back' on our browser to return to this list or access it again from the Global Dashboard.