The general steps involved in initializing and performing bank reconciliations are summarized in the list that follows. Make certain that you refer to the specific documentation for each step, which includes more detailed information.
You will find it most advantageous to begin performing Bank Reconciliations in the Costpoint system after you have been running live on Costpoint for at least several periods. You should initialize the preliminary setup screens early, however, so that the historical Accounts Payable (A/P), Accounts Receivable (A/R), and Payroll (P/R) transactions written to the tables will contain the data needed to perform the reconciliations when you are ready to begin. You will probably need to perform manual bank reconciliations until you have adequate historical Costpoint data available.
You should perform the following six steps as part of the general Costpoint setup during initialization, before processing begins and before detail transactions have been written to the history tables:
Maintain Banks
Maintain Company Bank Accounts
Establish cash account(s) in the General Ledger
Assign bank abbreviation and cash account information for Cash Receipts transactions
Assign bank abbreviation and cash account information for Accounts Payable transactions
Assign bank abbreviation and cash account information for Payroll transactions
The following remaining steps are specific to the Bank Reconciliation process, and you should perform them after initialization, when you have enough historical data to warrant successful processing. The decision to begin performing bank reconciliations using Costpoint should be in accordance with your internal priorities and the status of the history files; there are no system requirements.
Update Cash Accounts
View Cash Accounts
Maintain Bank Statement Information
Create Bank Transactions History
Accept Bank Transactions and/or Process Batch Bank Transactions
View Bank Reconciliation
Print Bank Reconciliation Summary Report
Print Bank Reconciliation Detail Reports
Detail on the first six steps in the process follows. Remember that you should perform these first six steps as part of the general Costpoint setup during initialization, before processing begins and before detail transactions have been written to the history tables.
Use the Maintain Banks screen.
Set up bank identification (ABA) number, name, and transfer type for all company banks from which and to which you will transfer funds (both manually (via checks) and electronically).
Use the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen.
Set up bank account information for your company, including a familiar bank abbreviation and description, bank account and location data, as well as a bank address and fractional ABA number for printing on blank laser checks (checks that have not been pre-printed with bank information).
As part of the bank reconciliation initialization process, select one or more bank abbreviations, as applicable, from those set up in this screen, for use in the following modules:
Accounts Receivable (for cash receipts transactions)
Accounts Payable (for accounts payable transactions)
Payroll (for payroll transactions)
If you have set up only one bank abbreviation, you can designate the same abbreviation for use in all modules.
When you post transactions from Costpoint Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and/or Payroll, the appropriate bank abbreviation and cash acct/org/ref1/ref2 information is written to the history tables, along with other detailed transaction data, including date, amount, vendor, etc.
Before using this screen, you must have first set up the bank and EFT information in the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen. It is important that you link the correct bank abbreviations to the corresponding cash accounts before posting any cash transactions. This will allow easier bank reconciliations when working with multiple currencies.
Use this screen to access General Ledger cash accounts in order to make adjustments to foreign currency. You can make online adjustments to bank balances for reasons such as service charges or fluctuations in the exchange rate.
You can also use this screen to see your General Ledger cash accounts expressed in both your company's functional currency and the currency in which the account is denominated.
Run this process to update the Bank G/L Cash Accounts table with the cash acct/org/ref1/ref2 combination data stored with the transaction detail for historical Accounts Payable, Cash Receipts, and/or Payroll transactions.
During the update process, the system reads all of the cash account/organization/ref1/ref2 combinations that have been previously used and stored with the detail transactions from A/P, Cash Receipts, and/or Payroll. If additional cash account combinations are found, the new data is added to the Bank G/L Cash Account table, but existing data in that table is not overwritten.
To view all the cash account combinations for which detail data is stored in Costpoint Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and/or Payroll, use the View subtask of the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen. (The data in the subtask table window is non-editable).
This subtask is populated from the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen when you run the Update Cash Accounts process. In this screen, you can view the cash acct/org/ref1/ref2 combination data written to this table from historical Accounts Payable, Cash Receipts, and/or Payroll transactions. You can view the data, but you cannot make edits.
Use this screen to enter and store statement and timing information for a bank account.
Each month, when the bank statement is received from the bank, enter the FY/Pd/Subpd data and the bank statement ending date and ending balance in this screen. The system will use this information to create the Bank Reconciliation Inquiry and the Bank Reconciliation Summary Report.
You should initiate this screen when using bank reconciliations for the first time and for each subsequent bank reconciliation.
Use this screen to print the bank statement that you uploaded into Costpoint using the bank statement upload feature in the Maintain Bank Statement Info screen.
With this screen, you can sort the statement by either the transaction date or by the transaction ID (the check number).
Print and review this report after uploading your bank statement and before reconciliation. You should verify that all uploaded data is correct. If you find an error in the statement, you can delete the uploaded bank statement in the Maintain Bank Statement Info screen.
In addition, you can use this report to obtain the information necessary for any adjusting entries to your General Ledger. You can use the Currency Balance and Adjustments screen to make necessary journal entries to your General Ledger.
You can print this statement as many times as necessary.
Use this screen to populate the Bank Transactions History table with transaction information from three sources: Accounts Payable (checks and EFT); Cash Receipts (deposits); and Payroll (checks and direct deposits).
During the Create process, the system copies transaction data from the source tables to the Bank Transactions History table. (The source tables include Vendor Check for A/P transactions, Cash Receipts Header and Transaction History for Cash Receipts transactions, and Employee Earnings for Payroll transactions.) During the copy process, the system marks the appropriate source table to indicate that the transaction has already been written to the Bank Transactions History table.
Transaction timing data (FY, Pd, Subpd) as well as transaction date, transaction ID, number, name, and amount are written to the Bank Transactions History table during the Create process. The system automatically assigns an initial "OUT" (Outstanding) condition to each record and identifies and writes the transaction origin (i.e., "CR," "AP," or "PR") to the table.
Once data is copied to the Bank Transactions History table, the system performs all bank reconciliations using only data from this table. The source tables are accessed once to populate the Bank Transactions History table and are not accessed again during bank reconciliations.
Note that Manual Adjustment data entered as New Line entries in the Accept Bank Transactions screen will also be written to the Bank Transactions History table when a new row is saved. (The source table is assigned as "MAN" (Manual).)
After you receive your bank statement, use this screen to compare the bank transactions with your historical G/L transactions and to clear (or unclear) the A/P, Cash Receipts, and/or Payroll transactions, as appropriate.
You will first select which transactions type(s) (A/P, Cash Receipts, and/or Payroll transactions records OR Manual Adjustments) should display in the Transactions subtask table window. You can further limit the selection by choosing cleared and/or outstanding transactions. You can also enter optional bank acceptance defaults for date, fiscal year, period, and subperiod.
Once you select the transaction records, you can clear or unclear bank transactions, view, or change acceptance data for these records in the Transactions subtask table window.
(Note that alternately you can choose to clear or unclear bank transactions in batch mode using the Process Batch Bank Transactions screen. When you use the Process Batch Bank Transactions screen, you can select one or more number ranges of bank transactions for which the code can be automatically changed from outstanding to cleared (or cleared to outstanding). Even if you have chosen to change the status of bank transactions in batch mode, you must use the Accept Bank Transactions screen to view the individual transactions and to make edits on a row-by-row or multiple row basis.)
You can also use this screen to enter manual bank adjustments such as interest income, bank charges, etc., that were not entered in cash receipts or accounts payable. Always keep manual entries to a minimum. You will normally record bank interest as a cash receipt and bank charges in Accounts Payable. Manual entries are designed to facilitate bank reconciliations only in the rare circumstance in which the normal data entry source has not been used.
Use this screen to process one or more ranges of bank acceptances as an alternative to clearing or unclearing either individual or multiple rows in the Accept Bank Transactions screen. (Note that if you change the cleared or outstanding code by using the process from this screen, you must use the Accept Bank Transactions screen to view the individual transactions and to make edits on a row-by-row or multiple row basis.)
You can process only one transaction type ("CR," "AP," "PR," or "MAN") at a time in batch mode because of the possibility of duplicate transaction numbers among transaction types. One or multiple transaction number ranges can be cleared or uncleared for the same transaction type during a single process, however.
You must set all transactions within the selected range(s) to "Cleared" or "Outstanding."
You must enter bank acceptance defaults for date, fiscal year, period, and subperiod if you are setting the transaction code to "Cleared" for the selected range(s). If you set the transaction code to "Outstanding," the bank acceptance default fields will be blanked and will not permit data entry.
Use this screen to view the bank reconciliation online in summary format for a specified fiscal year and period.
For General Ledger items, the screen displays the beginning book balance and the monthly totals for cash receipts, cash disbursements, and manual adjustments. The system calculates and displays the ending book balance from this data.
For Bank Statement items, the screen displays the last bank statement ending balance, deposits in transit, outstanding checks and manual adjustments, and unmatched cash receipts and disbursements. The system calculates and displays the adjusted bank statement balance.
Once the summary bank reconciliation displays, you can access each detail line on the reconciliation by using the corresponding pushbutton to view the detail transactions that make up each subtotal.
The summary report printed from this screen is identical to the online summary reconciliation that you can view in the Bank Reconciliation Inquiry screen. To print the Bank Reconciliation Summary Report, select a bank abbreviation, fiscal year, and period from the selection screen.
For General Ledger items, the report prints the beginning book balance and the monthly totals for cash receipts, cash disbursements, and manual adjustments. The system calculates and prints the ending book balance from this data.
For Bank Statement items, the report prints the bank statement ending balance, deposits in transit, outstanding checks and manual adjustments, and unmatched cash receipts and disbursements. The system calculates and prints the adjusted bank statement balance.
The detail transactions that make up each summary line displayed on the report can be printed from the Bank Reconciliation Detail Reports screen.
The bank statement/G/L reconciliation process should always be part of the internal procedures established by your company. Once the reconciliation process is complete, you should retain a copy of this report with your permanent bank reconciliation files.
The detail reports printed from this screen are similar to the online detail transactions subtasks that you can view in the Bank Reconciliation Inquiry screen, except that there are additional selection criteria. You can select a range of transaction dates, transaction numbers, and cash account/org(s), as well as the bank abbreviation, fiscal year, period, and subperiod(s) for each detail report.
For General Ledger items, you can print transactions detail for cash receipts, cash disbursements, and/or manual adjustments. For Bank Statement items, you can print transactions detail for deposits in transit, outstanding checks, outstanding manual adjustments, unmatched cash receipts, and/or unmatched cash disbursements
The bank statement/G/L reconciliation process should always be part of the internal procedures established by your company. Once reconciliation has taken place, you should retain a copy of this report with your permanent bank reconciliation files.
Use this screen to delete matched and cleared bank transactions history based on your selection criteria.
Bank reconciliation data in this table was originally copied from the source tables when you ran the Create Bank Transactions History process. The source tables included, as applicable are: Vendor Check for A/P transactions, Employee Earnings for Payroll, Cash Receipts Header, and Cash Receipts Transaction History for Cash Receipts transactions. The purge process from this screen will delete data only from the Bank Transaction History table; it will not delete data from the source tables.
To prevent the accidental deletion of data, we recommend that you restrict user access to this screen. Before you activate the purge, other users should exit all Bank Reconciliation screens process. Should an error (system, hardware, electrical) occur during the purge, the same user must restart and resume the purge after the crash.
Although you can run this process at any time, you should normally run this process to clear out unneeded history and free up database space. Before beginning the purge process, the system checks the status of all accounting periods within the range selected for the purge. If any period from the selected range is not closed, a warning message will display and ask you if you want to continue. If you choose to proceed, do so with caution. Typically, you should only purge transactions for closed accounting periods.
Following your company procedures, you should first identify which fiscal year and periods should be included in the selection parameters. You should verify that this data does not need to be retained in the system for future audits.