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Reconciliation isn’t just a box to tick. It’s what keeps your financial records accurate, your cash flow clear, and your financial statements trustworthy.
In NetSuite, journal entry reconciliation plays a key role in making sure transactions in the general ledger align with external records like bank statements. Done well, it supports faster financial closes and confident decision making. Done poorly, it creates discrepancies that ripple through every account.
This article explains how reconciliation works in NetSuite, the challenges finance teams often face, and the best practices to follow.
What Is Journal Entry Reconciliation?
Journal entry reconciliation is the process of making sure your company’s general ledger accounts align with external records and actual account balances. In practice, it means checking that transactions posted in the GL—through journal entries—match bank statements, credit card statements, and other financial documents.
The purpose is straightforward: accurate financial records. Regular reconciliation ensures your financial statements reflect your business’s reality. It also supports the financial close process, helping finance teams close faster without carrying forward mismatched transactions.
In NetSuite, account reconciliation enables finance teams to link journal entries with external records, match bank data, and identify discrepancies before they cause bigger issues. Not only is this the backbone of financial reporting, but it also boosts regulatory compliance and audit readiness.
How Journal Entry Reconciliation Works in NetSuite
NetSuite journal entry reconciliation is about aligning your general ledger with external records to confirm that every transaction is correct. The reconciliation process can be broken down into clear steps:
Step 1: Gather the data
Start with your company’s internal records. This includes journal entries posted to GL accounts, along with the account balances that feed into financial statements. Then pull in external records—bank statements, credit card statements, and other source documents.
Step 2: Access the Match Bank Data page
NetSuite enables finance teams to use the match bank data page to bring in bank data and compare it directly with transactions in the general ledger. This is where you’ll see mismatched transactions, missing data, or duplicate payments.
Step 3: Match transactions
Using the match bank data page, review the transactions side by side. NetSuite allows you to match bank data to journal entries, customer payments, or other financial accounts. The goal is to ensure that the GL reflects the same activity as the bank account.
Step 4: Investigate discrepancies
Any mismatched transactions or unexplained variances need to be reviewed. This could involve timing differences, outstanding checks, or manual errors in the account reconciliation process. Document these issues and make necessary adjustments.
Step 5: Update and finalize
Once transactions are matched, update the general ledger to reflect reconciled balances. This step supports the financial close process and ensures that financial statements present a complete, accurate picture of your financial health.
By following these steps, finance teams reduce discrepancies, maintain accurate financial records, and gain real-time visibility into their cash flow and account balances.
Common Challenges in Journal Entry Reconciliation
Even with NetSuite’s reconciliation tools, finance teams face hurdles that make the process time consuming and prone to errors. The most common challenges include:
- Manual reconciliation and data entry: When transactions are keyed in by hand, human errors creep in. A misplaced digit, duplicate entry, or overlooked journal entry can throw off account balances and distort financial statements.
- High transaction volumes: As businesses grow, the number of transactions spikes. Reconciling large volumes across multiple bank accounts and GL accounts increases the risk of mismatched transactions and delays in the financial close process.
- Timing differences and outstanding items: Discrepancies often arise because transactions haven’t cleared yet. Outstanding checks, credit card payments in transit, or bank fees not yet posted can all create temporary mismatches between bank data and the general ledger balance.
- Weak internal controls: Without clear ownership and review, account reconciliation becomes inconsistent. This lack of structure makes it harder to identify discrepancies and maintain complete accuracy across financial records. What’s more, it makes it more difficult to prepare for audits.
- Time-consuming processes: Finance teams often spend too much time searching through bank statements, external records, and internal data to track down mismatched transactions. This slows down the financial close process and drains resources that could be focused on decision making.
These challenges highlight why following best practices—and using tools that improve accuracy and automate parts of the account reconciliation process—is so important.
Best Practices for Journal Entry Reconciliation in NetSuite
Strong reconciliation practices keep your general ledger accurate, your financial statements reliable, and your financial close process smooth. Here are the best practices finance teams should follow when reconciling journal entries in NetSuite.
Use the Match Bank Data Page Effectively
NetSuite enables finance teams to reconcile accounts directly through the match bank data page. Use it to import bank data, automatically match bank transactions to journal entries, and highlight discrepancies early. This minimizes manual errors and speeds up the reconciliation process.
Standardize Your Reconciliation Process
Consistency is key. Standardize how you reconcile accounts across GL accounts, cash accounts, and bank accounts. Document the process and ensure it’s conducted regularly, so finance teams don’t carry forward mismatched transactions into the next financial close cycle.
Automate Where Possible
Manual reconciliation is time consuming and prone to human errors. Take advantage of NetSuite account reconciliation features that support automated reconciliation, such as rules-based matching and intelligent transaction suggestions. Automation helps improve accuracy, reduce discrepancies, and free up finance teams for higher-value work.
Strengthen Internal Controls
Assign clear ownership for account reconciliation and build checkpoints into the financial close process. Strong internal controls reduce the risk of duplicate payments, mismatched transactions, and regulatory compliance issues. They also improve audit readiness and decision making.
Maintain Documentation and Audit Trails
Every reconciliation should leave a paper trail. Store supporting bank statements, credit card statements, and other external records alongside reconciled account balances. This ensures complete accuracy, supports financial reporting, and provides real-time visibility into your company’s financial health.
Final Thoughts
Journal entry reconciliation is an important process for NetSuite users. Still, even with NetSuite’s reconciliation tools, the process can feel time consuming—especially for finance teams managing high volumes of transactions.
That’s where Kolleno can help.
Kolleno is the best NetSuite reconciliation software. Its direct NetSuite integration simplifies account reconciliation by automating transaction matching, handling bank fees seamlessly, and reducing discrepancies across GL accounts.
In other words, with Kolleno, you can reconcile transactions more quickly and more accurately.Ready to learn more about how Kolleno works with NetSuite? Book a demo today.
