IFC

Within IFC’s finance department, bank statements came in every day for several legal entities and accounts. These statements had to be downloaded, renamed, saved, imported into Exact Globe Next, and then booked and reconciled.

Exact recognized some of the lines automatically, but the rest had to be checked by hand. This included intercompany entries, salary payments, invoice payments, batch payments, partial payments and exceptions.

VionA developed a robot that runs most of this process automatically. The robot retrieves bank statements, prepares the files, imports them into Exact Globe Next and processes unreconciled bank lines based on recognition logic.

Since March, the robot has processed 500 bank statements.

Processing bank statements automatically

The problem: lots of manual clicks and complex reconciliation logic

Previously, the finance team had to log in to the bank portal every day to retrieve statements for the different legal entities. They also had to log in to a second account environment for, among other things, G-accounts and customer receipts.

After that, the XML files had to be renamed, placed on the shared finance drive and imported into Exact Globe Next one by one.

After the import, Exact already did part of the work. Some lines were linked to a relation or reconciled directly. But everything that remained had to be reviewed by hand.

For each bank line, that meant:

• Checking the description.
• Checking the amount.
• Identifying the relation or counterparty.
• Looking for invoice numbers in descriptions.
• Checking whether it’s an intercompany entry.
• Checking whether it’s a salary payment.
• Determining which account code is needed.
• Selecting and reconciling invoices.
• Assessing deviations or payment differences.

This made the process time-consuming and error-prone. Customers and suppliers use different descriptions, invoice numbers can be abbreviated and payments can cover several invoices at once.

On top of that, the logic differs per account type. Regular accounts, G-accounts, customer receipts and current account entries each require different handling.

The solution: a finance robot for bank transactions and reconciliation

VionA developed an automation that takes over the daily process of retrieving, importing and processing bank statements.

The robot starts after an employee provides the required response code. The robot then logs in to the bank portal and checks for each legal entity whether new statements are available.

Once the statements have been downloaded, the robot repeats this process for the second account environment. All files are then renamed according to the usual procedure and placed on the shared finance drive.

Next, the robot opens Exact Globe Next and imports the statements into the right legal entity.

The flow works as follows:

• Receive response code: An employee provides the required code, after which the robot can start the process.
• Open bank portal: The robot logs in to the financial accounts portal.
• Check statements per legal entity: For each legal entity, the robot checks whether statements are available.
• Download XML files: New statements are retrieved from the bank portal.
• Process second account environment: The robot repeats the steps for G-accounts and customer receipts.
• Rename and save files: The statements get the correct name and are placed on the shared finance drive.
• Import into Exact Globe Next: The robot imports the bank statements into the right legal entity.
• Read Exact’s results: After the import, the robot checks how much Exact has already linked or reconciled automatically.
• Review unreconciled lines: When further action is needed, the robot opens the statement and goes through the bank lines one by one.
• Identify relations: The robot tries to match relations based on description, name, bank account or fixed patterns.
• Reconcile invoices: The robot recognizes invoice numbers and tries to link payments to open invoices automatically.
• Process batch payments: For payments covering several invoices, the robot tries to select the right invoices and reconcile them together.
• Apply intercompany and salary logic: When a line falls under fixed booking logic, the robot books it using the correct account code.
• Log exceptions: When the robot suspects a payment can’t be processed automatically in a safe way, it’s logged.
• Send summary email: Afterwards, IFC receives an overview of the processing and any exceptions.

The robot can handle different paths for regular accounts, G-accounts and customer receipts. This means it automates not only the downloading and importing, but also a large part of the actual reconciliation logic.

The results

• 500 bank statements processed since March: The robot has now retrieved, prepared, imported and reviewed hundreds of statements.
• Stable since April: After the start-up phase, the automation runs stably and stalls are increasingly rare.
• 15 minutes of daily download work automated: Retrieving statements from the different account environments took about 15 minutes a day by hand. The robot now handles this part.
• 3 minutes of import work saved per statement: Each statement used to be imported into Exact Globe Next by hand. With 500 statements, this part alone adds up to about 25 hours of manual work.
• Less reconciliation work per bank line: Previously, each unreconciled line took about 1 minute of manual review. The robot takes over a large part of this work by automatically recognizing relations, invoice numbers, intercompany entries and fixed patterns.
• Complex financial decision logic automated: The robot doesn’t just process files, it also makes decisions based on description, amount, relation, invoice number, account type and booking logic.
• Exceptions handled safely: About 10% of the processed statements were logged as exceptions, for example due to missing transactions, possibly abbreviated invoice numbers, invoices not yet known in Exact or payment differences.
• Less risk of incorrect bookings: When the robot is in doubt, nothing is booked automatically. Instead, the robot logs the exception and reports it in the summary email to IFC.
• More control over financial peak workload: The process depends less on manual clicks, daily availability and the knowledge of specific employees.

Who is this relevant for?

This automation is relevant for organizations that process bank statements daily or weekly in Exact Globe Next or similar financial software.

Companies with several legal entities, multiple bank accounts, G-accounts, intercompany payments, batch payments or a lot of variation in customer and supplier descriptions in particular can save a lot of time.

The case shows that VionA goes further than simple import automation. The robot can also apply financial decision logic, run checks and safely pass exceptions on to employees.

Want to process bank statements automatically?

Is your finance team still processing bank statements, payments or open items by hand?

Then VionA can look into which steps can be automated: from downloading and importing to relation recognition, reconciliation and exception reporting.

Schedule a call and find out how your finance department can work faster, more consistently and with fewer errors.