Accurate financial records are crucial for running a successful business. Reconciliation gives businesses control over financial issues, ensuring no discrepancies exist in the transaction records.

However, this process can be time-consuming and complicated. So, what's the easiest and most efficient reconciliation solution for your business? Let’s find out.

What is transaction reconciliation?

Transaction reconciliation is the process of making sure that your business’s financial records match the payments recorded in your e-commerce platform. This process helps prevent errors, detect fraud, and provides a clear view of your business’s financial position.

Take for example, you sell 1 pair of shoes priced at $100, you can easily verify whether that $100 has been deposited into your bank account. At this stage, with just a single sale, this task is straightforward.

In reality, you will most likely be making more than 1 sale per day. When dealing with tens, hundreds, and thousands of transactions, manual reconciliation becomes a challenge. This is when you need to implement a robust and efficient reconciliation system to guarantee the accuracy of your transactions.

Why do you need transaction reconciliation?

For online businesses, transaction reconciliation is essential. Without it, your business becomes vulnerable to significant financial setbacks. Here's why:

Financial protection

If you don't reconcile, detecting discrepancies and errors in your records becomes tough. Overlooking these can result in missed payments, incorrect or failed transactions, and a hit to your bottom line.

Fraud detection

In the first seven months of 2022 alone, fraudulent activities led to approximately RM415 million in losses for Malaysians. Proactively safeguard your business against unauthorized transactions and other financial irregularities. By ensuring the set records of transactions are accurate with the records for payment, businesses can detect any threats and take action promptly.

Check out our article on how to protect your business from fraudsters.

Cash flow management

Reconciling transactions from various payment methods gives businesses a comprehensive income overview. This information enables better business decisions, strategy formulation, and overall improved financial management.

When selecting a reconciliation tool, consider the following criteria:

• Easy integration with your existing tools and systems

• Automated reconciliation with minimal manual input

• Multi-channel support for various payment methods

• Data security

• Easy-to-use dashboard

• A short learning curve for your team

3 different types of reconciliation

In-house reconciliation

Internal reconciliation aligns transactions using data sources from bank statements, credit card statements, payment processors, and internal records. While cost-effective and offering data control, it suits smaller merchants better. Large transaction volume can make this process daunting and time-intensive for finance and sales teams.

Bank reconciliation service

Bank reconciliations provide professional support but only compare bank transaction data, excluding other payment methods. This solution fits small merchants better due to transaction volume differences and varied payment methods.

Third-party reconciliation system

This service offers merchants quicker and easier transaction reconciliation, using accounting software or integrating a payment gateway into the e-commerce platform. It's the best fit for medium to large businesses with multiple payment methods, eliminating manual transaction data handling.

Keen to learn more about payment gateways? Check Payment Gateway 101.

What is the easiest way to reconcile transactions for your business?

Among those solutions, most businesses choose to opt-in with a payment gateway to perform transaction reconciliation. With this, all the payment details from different sources, such as bank transfers, credit/debit cards, or e-wallets will be gathered and stored on one platform, shortening the learning curve for the internal team.

Understanding that need, Opn Payments offers a real-time reconciliation and a custom report feature for a variety of payment methods on a single dashboard.

Streamline transaction reconciliation in 4 simple steps:

1.Create an account with Opn Payments

Start by creating a free account with Opn Payments to test our transaction reconciliation feature.

2.Activate the live account

Submit the required documents via Opn’s dashboard for identity and business verification

3.Test and launch

After the Opn team accepts and reviews the documents, it is essential to test the integration to make sure that everything is working as planned.

4.Go live

After successful testing, businesses can start accepting payments from customers. And, everytime a payment is made, the transaction will appear on the Opn Payments merchant dashboard in real-time. Teams will have visibility of the transaction status and will be able to filter data and pull reports as needed.

Over 22,000 businesses worldwide trust Opn with their payments. We aim to offer seamless transaction processing as well as robust reconciliation capabilities that empower your business with accurate financial management.

Getting started with Opn Payments is simple. Besides accepting payments, Opn Payments enables businesses to access payment data in real time through the comprehensive merchant dashboard. No matter the sales channel and payment method, all transaction data is consolidated in one place. And when it comes to accounting and reporting, your finance team can export transaction data in CSV file format. You can also use the advanced search functionality to filter data and pull custom reports as needed.

Opn is headquartered in Tokyo but has local teams in all countries we currently operate, including Kuala Lumpur. Take the next step towards transaction reconciliation and control your finances by contacting Opn Payments today.