NetClose - Prepare and Review Reconciliations
Summary
Once you've generated your reconciliations, it's time to prepare and then review them. Preparing your reconciliations consists of uploading your support to the reconciliations as reconciliation items. Reviewing them involves looking at the support and confirming that it's appropriate for your internal and external audit requirements to support your account balances or activity. This article will walk you through everything you need to know to provide and review that support.
Prerequisites
1. Account groupings need to be configured.
2. Reconciliations need to be generated for the period.
Navigating the Reconciliations List
There are three different navigation links you can use to get to the reconciliations list; each of these brings you to the same list with additional filters applied to it. All 3 of these links are found under NetClose > Reconciliations.
Prepare Reconciliations
This link brings you to the reconciliations list with the period filter set according to your system setup preference (NetClose > Setup > System Setup, Default Period setting under the Preferences field group) and the assignee filtered to your name. You can adjust these filters as needed, but the link will bring you to the page you'd access to view your assigned reconciliations and their current status.
Review Reconciliations
This link brings you to the reconciliations list with the period filter set according to your system setup preference (NetClose > Setup > System Setup, Default Period setting under the Preferences field group), the status filtered to "Submitted for Review", and the approver filtered to your name. You can adjust these filters as needed, but the link will bring you to the page you'd access to check for any reconciliations currently pending your review.
All Reconciliations
This link brings you to the reconciliations list with the period filter set according to your system setup preference (NetClose > Setup > System Setup, Default Period setting under the Preferences field group), but with no other filters applied. This view is best for getting a holistic view of all reconciliations. It is most commonly used by administrators, controllers, or anyone who needs a high-level idea of what's happening with reconciliations.
Preparing Reconciliations
After navigating to the reconciliations list (either "Prepare Reconciliations" or "All Reconciliations" would be best for this), you'll have a view of all of the reconciliations and their current statuses. Use the filters to control what period you're looking at, who's assigned to the reconciliations, which account groupings you're looking at, or other criteria.
Let's explain these columns before moving on to what you can do from this screen. Check the table below for more info.
| Name | The name of the reconciliation record. The format of the name is determined by the settings on your account groupings. If you have a grouping NOT segregated by account or subsidiary, it will simply be the grouping name, followed by a pipe and the period number. If you segregate by subsidiary, the subsidiary will be included as well. If you segregate by account, the name will be the account name instead of the account grouping name. You will also notice a colored dot to the left of each reconciliation's name. This dot represents the current status of that reconciliation and the color will change throughout the process. The name of the assignee for each reconciliation will be shown to the right of the reconciliation name in this column. |
| Period | The accounting period corresponding to the reconciliation is a filterable column. |
| GL Balance | The amount of this reconciliation balance per the NetSuite GL. |
| Due Date | The due date is assigned to this reconciliation from the account grouping. You may sort by this column, but not filter. |
| Explained Balance | The amount of your reconciliation that reconciliation items have explained. Here's an article on reconciliation items for more information on these. |
| Unexplained Balance | The amount of your reconciliation that needs to be explained by reconciliation items. Here's an article on reconciliation items for more information on these. |
The final column of each reconciliation includes action buttons and status indication badges. This allows assignees and approvers to take action directly in each line of the table without having to open anything. When hovering over any button the action that button takes will be explained. Below is an explanation of each action button.
Submit for review | |
Mark complete with no approver | |
Mark complete as the approver | |
Send back for edits |
For more information than you can see from this high-level view, click anywhere in the reconciliation row. This expanded view is also where you can create reconciliation items, check the consolidated reconciliation breakdown, create comments, check the approval flow, and see a history of changes on the reconciliation. Most importantly, information about the reconciliation account(s), their beginning balance, ending balance, and activity in the period are all contained in this view. They're underlined, indicating that they're links to searches used to pull these values into the reconciliation. You can use these searches to help investigate differences in your GL and what's in your reconciliation items.
From this expanded view, you can Start your reconciliation by clicking the button in the lower right of the record. In the picture above, you'll see a Restart button instead because this particular reconciliation has already been submitted for review. Other buttons will move the reconciliation to the different statuses (Complete, Submit for Review, Mark Blocked, Approve, Send Back for Edits). They'll become available as the reconciliation moves through the different statuses. Here's a table explaining each reconciliation status.
| Not Started | Nobody's working on the reconciliation yet. This is the default status upon generation or when a reconciliation is restarted. |
| In Progress | When someone starts working on a reconciliation, they can hit the Start button to move it to this status. This status helps inform high-level reviewers (controllers, accounting managers, etc.) that something is being done on the reconciliation. |
| Blocked | If a reconciliation is in progress, hitting the "Mark Blocked" button will move it to this "Blocked" status. This status indicates that somebody else needs to do something before you can continue the reconciliation. This will typically be that someone else needs to book some entries before the account can be reconciled. It's usually a good idea to indicate in the comments on the reconciliation why reconciliations are blocked and tag people who need to know in the comments. |
| Submitted for Review | Once the reconciliation is finished, the "Submit for Review" button moves the reconciliation to this status, where the reviewer can then mark the reconciliation as approved or send it back for edits. |
| Sent Back for Edits | If the reviewer sees something wrong with the reconciliation, they can hit the "Send Back for Edits" button to mark that it still needs work. It's a good idea to comment and tag the reconciliation owner to let them know what the issue was so they can address it. |
| Complete | If there's no reviewer set on a reconciliation, the reconciliation owner can just hit the "Complete" button when they've finished their reconciliation. If there is a reviewer, they'll need to hit the "Approve" button to move the reconciliation to the complete status. This indicates that the reconciliation is finished. |
| Auto-Reconciled | If the reconciliation has met the auto-reconciliation rules set on the account grouping, the reconciliation is moved to this status. It cannot be reached through the UI--only the reconciliation generation script or the auto-reconciliation script can set this status. See the Account Grouping Basic Configuration article for information on the setup of these rules and the Run Auto Reconciliations article for information on how these rules can be re-evaluated. |
These buttons and statuses can be used regardless of whether there is an unexplained balance or not. Notwithstanding, the goal is to explain the unexplained balance using reconciliation items. We have an entire article on reconciliation items and how they can be created that you can reference.
Once reconciliations have been completed, they may need to be reviewed. Reviewers are set up on the account grouping underlying the reconciliation.
Review Reconciliations
If you are a reviewer for reconciliations, you'll want to filter the reconciliations list to see the reconciliations pending your approval. You can either modify the Status and Approver filters to "Submitted for Review" and your name, respectively, or navigate to NetClose > Reconciliations > Review Reconciliations, which will apply those filters for you. You'll see the same informational view covered above in the Prepare Reconciliations section, but only the reconciliations you need to approve.
Click in the reconciliation row to open the expanded view of the reconciliation. The key information you'll be concerned with is the unexplained and explained balances and the corresponding reconciliation items that explain that balance. You can click the View button next to the reconciliation items to go to the underlying record with a file potentially attached as supporting documentation.
In addition to an attached document, the reconciliation item can have an underlying saved search it was generated from, may have some adjustment journal it corresponds to, or may be a carry-forward item from a previous period. For more information on how reconciliation items can be created and what they are used for, you can see our article on reconciliation items.
On the expanded reconciliation view, you'll also notice that you have two buttons in the lower right corner allowing you to approve the reconciliation or send it back for edits. If you approve the reconciliation, it'll be moved to a "Complete" status and be considered finished. If you send it back for edits, it's best to add a comment to the reconciliation, tagging the owner so they know what work they need to do to get the reconciliation to an appropriate state to be approved.
Once you've approved all of your reconciliations, you're through!