The corporate card is hardly immune from credit card fraud. In fact, fraud nearly doubled at in just Q2 of 2020. But matching transaction data through credit card reconciliation is a slow, painstaking process.
It's not surprising that verifying expense reports through credit card reconciliation is probably one of the least liked tasks for AP teams. Not only is it boring, but it's also easy to make a mistake, especially if several employees are sharing a company card. And if there's a discrepancy between the credit card bill and the expense report, there's even more paperwork and meetings as HR gets involved.
But even if the credit card reconciliation process runs smoothly and the corporate card is fraud-free, it's a repetitive, low-impact task. Reconciliation is vital from matching expenses to submitting the final approval. Some of the benefits include:
- Fraud reduction
- Data entry validation
- Bank statement verification
- Enhanced tax reporting
- Theft control
For finance teams, the focus on reviewing every minute credit card charge by hand is a waste of resources. Time spent on manual reconciliation reduces resources meant for purposeful work and high-level finance strategy.
But the problem doesn't lie with reconciliation. Instead, the main challenge AP professionals face is ditching manual and legacy processes.
The problem with manual credit card reconciliation
Even with an ERP, manual credit card reconciliation is hardly time-effective. The last thing an AP professional enjoys is glaring at a computer screen for hours while attempting to match up a lengthy credit card statement with an employee's expense report and receipts. Printing the statements out doesn't fare much better, as papers easily go missing and clutter the work area.
Unclear statements can make this process even more exhausting. But that's nothing compared to the frustration that comes with doing all that work to find a conflicting credit card charge.
Without proper oversight of corporate credit cards, fraud, even if unintentional, can continue unhindered. Manual processes make complete visibility impossible, further making it easier for an employee or third-party vendor to fudge the numbers.
Automated reconciliation provides a solution.
Automated reconciliation with Gorilla Expense
Gorilla Expense makes credit card reconciliation a cinch. There's no need to log into the company bank account and compare statements within an ERP or paper expense reports. All of this is done automatically.
Here's how it works:
- Our integration will sync data from the linked credit account regularly
- We then go ahead and create expense reports for your users automatically
- Expense Reports correspond to the statement posting start and end dates
- Coding for the expense lines is also automated based on historical coding
- We even go and automatically attach any receipts stored in the Receipt Box
- All the users have to do is review and submit the expense report
But what if there's a gap between the expense date and the post date? Not a problem. Our system understands the regular 1-3 day gap that can occur during the settlement process. That's why we create the reports by posting date and the users cannot change the dates. This means there will be one-one relationship between each user's credit card statement and expense report, hence making reconciliation a breeze.
Gorilla Expense also helps AP professionals in spotting potential inconsistencies or policy violations. If a credit card transaction has violated the expense or receipt policy, the transaction will be flagged for manual review.
How our credit card integration process works?
Our credit card integration syncs with your bank multiple times a day and brings in all posted transactions. We have integration with 3000+ banks and credit cards like American Express, Visa, and Mastercard to ensure that all our customers can make the most of this feature. Users receive an e-mail when data is auto-imported and expense reports is created, so they know immediately when there are new expense report is pending submission. Once the expense report is submitted and approved, it can be pushed to the ERP system.
ERPs we support are:
We specialize in configuring our software to unique customer requirements to ensure that an automation solution seamlessly merges with a user’s specific business model that may have a variety of combinations of Dimensions, sub-accounts, segments, jobs/projects etc.
Get started today
It's clear that automation is a game-changer for AP teams. The immense time and cost savings can free up resources for overworked AP professionals eager for more meaningful work. At the same time, the enhanced analytics and cost savings from the automated credit card reconciliation process provides insights to all stakeholders, increasing the likelihood of buy-in for other automation accounting projects.
Ready to do away with duplicates, achieve 100% visibility, and reconcile 1000s of credit card transactions in minutes?
with us today and see how can streamline your reconciliation process.
