The act of reconciliation of settlements between legal entities is a fairly common document. Perhaps not all accountants recognize its importance, but to eliminate misunderstandings and unnecessary mistakes, you need to periodically communicate with counterparty accounting. By signing the reconciliation report, the debtor recognizes its debt. The reconciliation report indicates the date of the comparison of the balances on the accounts, therefore, if an unscrupulous debtor refuses to pay you, you can present a reconciliation statement certified by the seal and signature of the authorized representative of the counterparty and thereby show the presence of debt.
There are several situations in which a reconciliation act is necessary. Firstly, by granting a deferment to the buyer. The delivery contract clearly stipulates the duration of the delay, and upon its completion - or even a few days before the expected payment date - the supplier can delicately “remind” the customer that the payment deadline has passed. The reconciliation act is also necessary if the partners have been cooperating for a long time and transactions are often made, and the range of goods sold is quite wide. In this case, it is necessary to check periodically, if only because because of the numerous shipments, the frequent arrival of the goods, multiple transfers of money, the accountant can simply get confused. And if you see that the counterparty has the same balance of payments with your organization, you can be sure that you are doing everything right. Thirdly, the reconciliation act should take place at high amounts of cash turnover. In order not to harm the financial situation of the company, everything must be done to eliminate annoying mistakes and shortcomings.
The form of the reconciliation act is not fixed in the legislation. When compiling it, you need to make a selection of all completed business transactions between two legal entities (these are payments, sale and purchase of goods, raw materials, materials, provision of services - everything that is documented and signed by both parties). At the beginning of the register in the reconciliation report indicate the balance at the beginning of the period for which reconciliation is carried out, if any. Then they show all the receipts in monetary terms and summarize - the debt in favor of one of the organizations or zero balance - when all the calculations are completed.
The obligatory requisite for drawing up a reconciliation report, in addition to the press, is the signature of the heads of the reconciling companies. Putting its resolution, the head of the company confirms the accuracy of the verification of information specified in the act.
The reconciliation report is drawn up in duplicate, on both of which is the signature of the accountant responsible for the statement , the chief accountant (this can be the same person) and the manager. Both copies are sent to the second side so that there they confirm the truth of the information in the act and also sign and stamp it.
It is advisable to verify the calculations at the end of the month, quarter, year, because when compiling various accounting reports, it is necessary to indicate the amount of receivables and payables in them .
Modern they allow you to quickly make a selection on all accounting accounts and draw up a reconciliation report, so you don’t have to dig into the archive, looking for all invoices, accounts, payment orders.
Remember that you cannot force the organization with which you are checking to sign a reconciliation act, and if they do not want to recognize debts owed to you, they may not return the act you sent. Therefore, make sure that the reconciliation act says that if the party that compiled and sent the reconciliation act to the other party does not receive its copy of the act after a certain period, the balance (balance) will be considered confirmed.