Instant – Not Always Good
Instant rice and online banking have a lot in common. Instant rice is obviously quick, providing you with an immediate result. It works really well for casserole recipes or for certain dishes where rice and other ingredients are mixed together. But if you are serving dinner guests or in a fine restaurant, you expect the chef to put in the extra effort to serve gourmet rice prepared in an exotic way.
Don’t just rely on point-in-time views. Take time to reconcile accounts.
As with instant rice, online banking provides instant information regarding your bank balance, making it a great tool for certain situations; however, if you want to use it as an effective tool to manage your daily cash flow, it requires the extra effort of being connected to a cash reconciliation process that is properly maintained and reviewed periodically.
Before the days of online banking, the standard practice for both personal and business checking accounts was to reconcile a check register to a monthly bank statement. When accounting professionals adopted online banking into their processes, organizations tended to forgo the discipline of maintaining a check register as part of their reconciliation processes.
The following is a typical conversation I’ve had when consulting with clients on accounting process improvements:
Accounting professional, with a bundle of unsigned checks, “This is our process for obtaining check signatures.”
Me, “How do you know you have enough money in the account to cover these checks? What is your procedure?”
Accounting professional, “I checked the balance on line this morning.”
Me, “Where is the reconciliation to the check register? How do you know that all of the uncashed checks will not deplete the entire balance?”
Accounting professional, “I know there are not that many outstanding checks.”
Me, “When is the last time you reconciled the account?”
Accounting professional – answers range from a year ago to do not remember (not good) – to yesterday or a month ago (which is good).
As with using instant rice, there are times when viewing online balances without going through the reconciliation process are appropriate, but it’s not the final reconciliation tool.
Let’s try an experiment: If you are a CEO or President of an entrepreneurial company or a Finance Chair of a non-profit, ask the accounting department for the latest bank/cash reconciliation of the operating account. Ask specifically for these documents:
- The bank reconciliation
- A copy of the bank document to which it was reconciled
- The Balance Sheet balance to which it was reconciled
(Note: Publicly traded companies, financial institutions, insurance companies and other regulated industries have to maintain reconciliation procedures, so if you are in charge of one of those, regulation will take care of this.)
If you are bold enough to move forward with this call to action, my experience tells me about 50% of you will get a reconciliation completed in the last 45 days. If you get one and do not know how to review it, contact me for a free, no-obligation checklist that will guide you through a high-level review. If you do not get a reconciliation, and, in fact, get a blank stare from your accounting person, contact a financial professional to complete a review of your cash procedures and process. You may have plenty of cash flow today – however, that can change quickly if you do not appropriately manage it. Don’t risk finding yourself in a position where you cannot meet your basic financial obligations. “Cash is king” is a cliché’ for a reason – it is a requirement to run almost any type of business.
Mindy Barker & Associates works with entrepreneurial business owners to empower them with the tools and financial information to improve company value, profitability, and cash flow. To find out more on how you can be empowered, contact them today at [email protected], or call 904.728.2920.