⚠️ This article is only intended for customers who were informed by Spendesk that they have discrepancies within the journals.
⚠️ Ignore this article if you use your account statement instead of your bank journal for reconciliation.
Follow this article to understand what to do if there is a positive or a negative discrepancy between your bank journal and your account statement.
First, read a reminder of the difference between the accounting journals (purchase and bank journals) and the account statement.
What is the difference between accounting journals and an account statement?
There are two types of accounting journals: a purchase journal and a bank journal.
The purchase journal records your debt in your accounting software. At Spendesk, this includes card payables, expense claims and invoice payables.
The bank journal reconciles the payables with the corresponding payments for a given period. It displays all the corresponding payments performed via Spendesk (including card and expense claim payments if they were paid via wire transfer on Spendesk) - no matter if the payables are "marked as ready" in 'Bookkeep > Prepare' or not.
The account statement is not an accounting journal. It's a simple bank extract that lists all the movements on a bank account, with no additional bookkeeping information or mention of accounts affected by those transactions.
The balance of a given month on the bank journal and the account statement should match
Bank journal balance of period X = account statement balance of period X
The bank journal payments used to reconcile against the payables of a given month should match the balance shown on the account statements that you can export or that are visible in ‘Settings > Your wallet > Account statement’.
Purchase journal balances of period X ≠ bank journal balance of period X
However, the purchase journal balances and the bank journal balances will not match. This is because we only show the payments made via Spendesk in the bank journal. You, therefore, need to check on your side whether you paid expense claims (if these are paid outside Spendesk) or invoices via your other bank accounts.
What to do if your bank journal and your account statements don’t match?
Case 1: Positive discrepancy
If the sum of payments in your bank journal is smaller than the sum of transactions in your account statement, you might not have reconciled certain payables with their corresponding payments. In this case:
Search for the amount of the discrepancy on the ‘All payments’ tab (e.g. your indicated positive payment amount mismatch is 100€)
If you have identified the corresponding entry, use the information under the ‘All payments’ tab for this entry to reconcile the payable
If you are not able to spot the missing payment, reach out to us via the chat so that we can check your case individually
Case 2: Negative discrepancy
If the sum of payments in your bank journal is bigger than the sum of transactions in your account statement, you might have matched multiple payments with a single payable. In this case:
Search for the amount of the discrepancy on the ‘All payments’ tab (e.g. your indicated negative payment amount mismatch is -20€)
If you have identified the corresponding entry, use the information under the ‘All payments’ tab for this entry to reconcile this payable
If you are not able to spot the missing payment, reach out to us via the chat so that we can check your case individually!