How to Do Bank Reconciliation in NetSuite

Quick Answer: NetSuite reconciles a bank account in two stages. On the Match Bank Data page you pair imported bank lines with NetSuite transactions, mark the rest cleared or excluded, and submit. Then on Reconcile Account Statement you choose the account, enter the Statement End Date and Ending Statement Balance, include the submitted transactions, and click Reconcile. Without a bank feed, you import the statement as a file first.

NetSuite's bank reconciliation is built around imported bank data. The bank's transactions arrive through a feed or an uploaded file, NetSuite's matching rules pair them with transactions already in the ledger, and you resolve whatever is left before closing the statement. The older single-page reconciliation stopped being supported in NetSuite 2021.1, so any instructions that skip the matching stage are out of date.

The procedure below follows Oracle's NetSuite help chapter Bank Data Matching and Reconciliation and its sub-topics. Menu paths shown are the ones Oracle gives for the Administrator role; custom roles may place the pages elsewhere.

Two pages, two different jobs

It helps to know what each page is for before opening either.

Matching is ongoing; you can do it daily as data arrives. Reconciling happens once per statement.

What has to be set up first?

Two things trip up first-time users:

• The account flag. Each bank or card account needs the Use Match Bank Data and Reconcile Account Statement Pages box checked on its Edit Account page. New accounts have it by default; older accounts may need it turned on.
• Permissions. Your role needs the Reconcile permission among the banking permissions, or the pages will not appear.

If your company uses custom transaction types and wants them to show up, Oracle points to an accounting preference called Show All Transaction Types In Reconciliation.

How do you get bank statement data into NetSuite without a bank feed?

Oracle lists three ways bank data reaches the matching page: the Bank Feeds SuiteApp, the Auto Bank Statement Import SuiteApp, and a manual file import. The manual route is the one you need when a bank has no connection, when you are working on old periods, or when the account belongs to a foreign bank.

For a manual import, you download a statement file from the bank and upload it, using either a format profile set up for that financial institution or NetSuite's default parsers. The supported file types Oracle names are CSV, OFX, QFX, BAI2 and CAMT.053. PDF is not on the list. Two limits from Oracle's manual bank data import topic are worth knowing: keep each import under 10,000 transactions to avoid performance problems, and do not link more than 2,500 accounts to one format profile.

When the bank will only give you a PDF, the statement has to become one of those formats first. You can retype it into a CSV for a short month, export from online banking if the period is still available there, or run the PDF through a converter. QuickBankConvert turns statement PDFs into CSV, and into QFX on its Plus plan, without asking for your bank login; you upload only the file, and it is parsed and stored on our servers, with deletion available on request through the contact page. Our article on importing bank statements into NetSuite covers the column layout and format profile in more detail, and the PDF to CSV page shows what the converted file contains.

Matching on the Match Bank Data page

Once data is imported, NetSuite's Intelligent Transaction Matching applies reconciliation rules automatically. Your job is the exceptions:

1. Open Match Bank Data and pick the bank or card account in the Account list.
2. If automatic imports are set up, click Update Imported Bank Data to pull the latest lines.
3. Review the Match Suggestions subtab. Accept the suggestions that are right and submit them.
4. Move to Transactions to Match. Filter the two grids by date or amount and match the remaining bank lines to NetSuite transactions by hand. One bank line can correspond to several NetSuite transactions, such as a deposit made up of multiple customer payments.
5. For a NetSuite transaction that has no bank line but you know cleared, mark it as cleared; it becomes cleared pending submission.
6. For a bank line that should not be matched at all, such as a duplicate line from overlapping imports, exclude it. Excluded lines are listed on the Excluded Transactions subtab.
7. Submit, so the matched and cleared transactions are cleared in NetSuite.

For customer receipts, Oracle suggests running Automated Cash Application before manual matching, since it can create and apply payments from bank lines and shrink the exception list.

A bank line with nothing on the NetSuite side usually means a transaction was never recorded: a bank fee, an interest credit, an automatic debit. Record it as a normal transaction, then match it.

Closing the period on Reconcile Account Statement

Oracle's Reconciling Bank and Credit Card Statements topic sets out the closing steps:

1. Go to Transactions > Bank > Reconcile Account Statement.
2. Select the account.
3. Enter the Statement End Date. Choose a date in the past, and get it right: it cannot be changed later, because NetSuite uses it as the close date for the Reconciliation and Reconciliation History reports.
4. Enter the Ending Statement Balance. If the statement was imported, NetSuite fills in the imported ending balance, which you can edit.
5. Check the Review subtab for the matched and cleared transactions.
6. On the Reconcile subtab, include or exclude transactions. Filters for date range, type and a search box narrow the list, and Show Included Only shows just your selections.
7. Watch Last Reconciled Balance and Reconciled This Statement; the second updates as you tick boxes.
8. Click Reconcile, then OK in the Close Statement prompt.

NetSuite saves the box-ticking as you go, so you can leave and come back.

What if the difference is not zero?

Unlike some small-business software, NetSuite lets you reconcile a statement even when the amount is not zero. That makes discipline your responsibility. Before you click Reconcile with a difference, check:

• That the Statement End Date matches the statement and has not pulled in a transaction from the next day.
• That all of the period's bank lines were imported. An import that stopped partway leaves a gap.
• For excluded lines that were real transactions.
• For a previously reconciled transaction whose amount was edited. Oracle notes that changing the amount unreconciles it, while changing only its account does not.

If you reconcile and then find more transactions that belong to that statement, Oracle's guidance is to delete the reconciled statement for that period and redo it, rather than trying to patch it.

Reports to keep

After closing, run the account reconciliation reports for the statement and save them with the bank's PDF. Auditors usually want the Reconciliation report for the close date plus the statement itself, and the Reconciliation History report shows each closed period for the account.

Related guides

• Import bank statements into NetSuite
• Bank statement reconciliation guide
• Converting PDF statements to CSV