Version 2.0 | 1 September 2022

Bank reconciliation is the process of periodically matching financial transactions you have created in INSIGHT with transactions recorded on your Trust Account Bank Statement. The Bank Reconciliation process involves the creation of a Bank Reconciliation report to account for the differences between INSIGHT’s Trust Account balance and the Bank Statement balance as at the reconciliation date. These differences may be due to timing differences in the recording of transactions, or may occur due to processing errors. Bank Reconciliation is an important financial control to verify that both the Trust Account and Bank Statement are complete and correct, and to detect and correct any discrepancies due to error or fraud. You should complete Bank Reconciliations for your Trust Account on a regular basis, at least monthly. First released in May 2017 (INSIGHT Version 4.3.1) the Bank Reconciliation function enables you to complete manual Bank Reconciliations. Over subsequent releases additional features will be released that will enable automated Bank Reconciliation via the integration of the bank reconciliation function with bank feeds and the upload of electronic statements. This document describes the INSIGHT Bank Reconciliation function, and how to use it to complete your Bank Reconciliation. 

INSIGHT Setup & Configuration

Bank Reconciliation is automatically available via the Finance menu for Administrators. For non-Administrators Bank Reconciliation must first be enabled via the Processing Permissions Group settings to ensure the Bank Reconciliation menu items appear under the Finance menu. Processing Permission Group

The steps to edit the Processing Permissions Group are:

1. Select Setup > Security from the INSIGHT Menu 

2. Select Processing Permissions Group 

3. Select the Processing Permission Group Name for the group / role that will access Bank Reconciliation 

4. Select Finance from the page list on the right 

5. Select Edit 

6. Select the checkbox Bank Reconciliation 

7. Select Exit then Save in the Exit dialog box to save your changes. 

Your Bank Accounts 

The INSIGHT Bank Reconciliation process assumes that you have advised your bank to automatically allocate all miscellaneous charges (such as Bank Fees) and income (such as Interest Income) to your Operating Account rather than your Trust Account. The INSIGHT accounting module does not cater for the recording of miscellaneous financial transactions within the INSIGHT Trust Account. 

Bank File Imports

Bank File Imports enable you to automatically import financial transactions, such as client receipts, from your bank or other financial institution to INSIGHT. 

INSIGHT’s Bank Reconciliation will work with your current Bank File Imports, such as the Macquarie DEFT Payments System.

When reconciling, refer to your Bank Statement presenting a statement line, such as ‘Deposit – DEFT Settlement’, with the combined total of DEFT receipts and match it with the INSIGHT’s record, such as ‘DEFT File import’, also showing the combined total of DEFT receipts. 

Prescribed Investments

When using INSIGHT’s Prescribed Investments module to record the of transfer funds to or from your Prescribed Investments, the transfers will also be automatically recorded in the Bank Reconciliation module to simplify the reconciliation process. 

This section describes each feature of the Bank Reconciliation module. 

New Bank Reconciliation

Access New Bank Reconciliation via the Finance Menu to start a new bank reconciliation. 

1. Bank Statement Balance 

a. Last Reconciliation – Displays the Date and Balance for the last completed Bank Reconciliation. By default, these fields are not editable, and display as greyed out fields. You cannot override these fields once you have completed your first Bank Reconciliation. 

For your first reconciliation, both fields are editable. The default display shows current date and $0.00 balance, allowing you to enter the date and balance of your first reconciliation. Refer to Section 4.1 for further details on completing your first reconciliation. 

b. New Reconciliation – enter the As At Date (i.e. the date of the reconciliation) and the Bank Statement balance at that date for your new Bank Reconciliation. 

c. Reconciling Items – Displays the total amount of unresolved reconciling items between the Bank Statement and INSIGHT. Includes two fields to identify reconciling items at the Last Reconciliation and at the New Reconciliation. 

d. Update – Used to add new and manage existing reconciling items. 

2. Bank Statement Reconciling Items 

When Update is selected, you will be directed to the Bank Statement Reconciling Items page. This will display a table of unresolved reconciling items with the following details: 

a. Add – allows you to create a blank row where you can record the Bank Statement Date, Description and Amount of a new reconciling item. This also includes the option to Delete the row in case of creating the row in error. 

b. Save - allows you to save your progress when recording reconciling items. You can select Save as often as needed until you are ready to exit the page. 

c. Exit - allows you to exit the Bank Statement Reconciling Items page and returns you to the New Bank Reconciliation screen. If you have not saved your changes, upon selecting ‘Exit’, a dialog box warns that your changes will not be saved if you continue to exit the page. In this case, select ‘Cancel’, save your changes, and select ‘Exit’.

3. Date Selection 

Date Selection allows you to filter the unreconciled transactions to display in the Transactions window. You would typically set the ‘From Date’ to be on or just before the date of the last reconciliation, and the To Date to be several days after the new reconciliation. 

Select the ‘Search’ button to display all unreconciled transactions for the selected dates in the Transactions window. 

4. Transactions 

The Transactions window displays all unreconciled transactions recorded in the INSIGHT Trust Account for the selected dates. Use the checkbox to select transactions that you have matched with corresponding Bank Statement lines. The Reconciliation Totals defined below automatically adjust as you check / un-check individual transaction lines. 

Tip: 

• You can select all displayed transaction lines by selecting the checkbox in the header row. 
• You can sort the transactions by selecting column headers to sort the displayed data in either ascending or descending sequence. 

5. Reconciliation Totals 

a. Total to be Reconciled – calculated as ‘New Reconciliation Balance’ less ‘Last Reconciliation Balance’. 

b. Selected Transactions Total – the sum of all transactions in the Transactions window that you have check boxed (i.e. matched) with a corresponding bank statement line item. Represents the sum of the net value of the debits and credits selected. 

c. Reconciliation Difference – calculated as ‘Total to be Reconciled’ less ‘Selected Transactions Total’. Reconciliation Difference will equal zero only when you have successfully selected all transactions in the Transactions window that match to the corresponding bank statement lines on for the reconciliation period. When Reconciliation Difference equals zero the ‘Reconcile’ button will turn from grey to blue, allowing you to complete the reconciliation. 

6. Page Buttons 

a. Reconcile – select the Reconcile button to complete a reconciliation. The button is greyed out and disabled by default, and is only enabled (i.e. turns blue) when Reconciliation Difference equals zero. 

b. Save – allows you to save an in-progress reconciliation for later completion. You can save each in progress reconciliation as often as needed until you are ready to complete the reconciliation. 

c. Export to Excel – allows you export all selected transactions within the chosen period onto an excel report. 

d. Exit – allows you to exit New Bank Reconciliation and returns you to the INSIGHT Home page. On selecting ‘Exit’ a dialog box prompts you to save, or exit without saving the reconciliation. 

Past Bank Reconciliation

View previously completed bank reconciliations via Past Reconciliations on the Finance Menu. 

1. Bank Statement Balance – Reconciliation Date 

The default view is to show the last completed reconciliation. To show other reconciliations select the down arrow. 

2. Reconciling Items 

Shows the total amount of unresolved reconciling items included in that reconciliation. 

3. View Reconciling Items 

This is a hyperlink that will direct you to the Bank Statement Reconciling Items page. Note that this page is read-only, you won’t be able to add to or update the table. 

4. Transactions 

Shows the reconciled transactions for the Reconciliation Date selected. 

5. Total Reconciled 

The net value of the Debits and Credits for all transactions in the Transactions window. 

6. Unreconcile 

The Unreconcile button is enabled (color blue ) when viewing the last completed reconciliation. If you have selected any other past reconciliations the Unreconcile button will show as disabled  color grey). Note that you can unreconcile multiple past reconciliations by always selecting the most recent past reconciliation. 

This section describes the steps to complete a bank reconciliation. 

Your First Bank Reconciliation

For your first INSIGHT Bank Reconciliation, you have the choice of reconciling all previous transactions until you get to the current month, or you may simply choose to start your INSIGHT Bank Reconciliations from the date of your last external Bank Reconciliation. 

As mentioned in Section 3.1 each New Bank Reconciliation automatically shows the Bank Statement balance as at the last completed reconciliation. For your first Bank Reconciliation the Last Reconciliation date and balance fields for the will be editable. If you choose to start your INSIGHT Bank Reconciliation from the date of your last external Bank Reconciliation you simply enter the date and the adjusted statement balance as at your last external bank reconciliation. 

Tip: 

• You may need to adjust your first Bank Statement balance if you have outstanding transactions at the date of your last reconciliation that you processed in INSIGHT after the date of your first INSIGHT reconciliation. Refer to the Appendix for a worked example to demonstrate this point. 

New Bank Reconciliation Process

The steps to complete a New Bank Reconciliation are: 

1. Enter the Bank Statement date and balance for the period you are reconciling. 

Tip: 

• The date entered should be the end date for the period you are reconciling, and the balance entered should be the bank statement balance as at that date. 

2. Complete the Date Selection by selecting the ‘From Date’ and ‘To Date’ for the Trust Account transactions you want to display in the Transactions window, then select Search. 

Tip: 

• Typically you would select the ‘From Date’ a day or two prior to the date of the last completed reconciliation, and the ‘To Date’ to be a day or two after the statement date for this reconciliation 
• You can adjust the ‘From Date’ and ‘To Date’ at any time if required to show more or fewer transactions. However, before you do make sure you save your work first by selecting the Save button. If you do not you will lose any changes not already saved. 

3. Match each transaction in the Transactions window to the corresponding transaction(s) on your Bank Statement until the ‘Reconciliation Difference’ is zero. 

Tip: 

• If you receive your Bank Statements electronically, you may find it easier to print the Bank Statement prior to commencing the reconciliation. 
• Remember to save your work regularly by selecting Save. 

4. When you identify items that are present in your Bank Statement but are not recorded in the selected period in INSIGHT, select Update to add these items to the Bank Statement Reconciling Items page. 

5. The Total to be Reconciled and the Reconciliation Difference totals below the Transactions window will automatically update to reflect the value of the items you select for reconciliation. 

6. Once the Reconciliation Difference is zero the reconcile button will be enabled. Once enabled, select Reconcile to complete the reconciliation. Selecting Reconcile will mark each of the selected Trust Account transactions as reconciled, and will save the completed reconciliation to ‘Past Reconciliations’ for viewing and reporting. 

7. You will be prompted to confirm you want to proceed – select Yes to continue 

8. A green message line will briefly appear to confirm the Reconciliation is complete.

Bank Reconciliation Report

The Bank Reconciliation Report shows the results of each bank reconciliation. It reports how your INSIGHT Trust Account reconciles to your Bank Statement balance and lists any unreconciled items. 

You can select to run the report in either Summary or Detail mode. ‘Detail’ includes the unreconciled items for the reconciliation, whereas ‘Summary’ reports just the Reconciliation Summary and the sum of the unreconciled transactions. 

All Report Types (Reconciled & Unreconciled), Styles (Detail & Summary) and formats (PDF & Excel) will include the: 

• As At Date - the period being reconciled 
• Created Date - the date and time the reconciliation was completed 

The report sub-totals unreconciled transactions using the following categories: 

Outstanding Payments 

Represent payment transactions created in INSIGHT that are not included on the Bank Statement at the time of completing the Bank Reconciliation. 

Outstanding Receipts 

Represent receipt transactions recorded in INSIGHT that are not included on the Bank Statement at the time of completing the Bank Reconciliation. 

Outstanding Bank Statement Transactions 

Represent transactions recorded on the Bank Statement for which a corresponding INSIGHT transaction was not posted before or on the reconciliation date. These are typically DEFT Settlements recorded on the Bank Statement for which the corresponding receipt was posted in INSIGHT after the Reconciliation date.