Ledgers, Balances & Reconciliation challenge
Twelve questions on posting, reversal, cut-off and matching receipts to invoices.
Payments · Interactive Transaction Model
Reconciliation Cost Calculator
Exceptions · Hours · FTE · Cost
Change the break rate, the exception share and the automated clearing and see what each one does to the queue, the analyst hours and the monthly cost. What costs money is not the breaks but the ones a person has to open.
Gross count entering reconciliation, across all channels.
Share that does not match automatically on the first pass. Under one per cent is common; the tail is what costs.
Share of those exceptions a rules engine resolves without a person. This is the lever the business case turns on.
Average analyst time to investigate and clear one break, including the ones that need a counterparty.
Start from an example: Two million transactions, half a per cent unmatched, nothing automated →
Advanced parameters1
- —Transactions
- —Exceptions
- —Cleared automatically
- —Left by hand
- —Analyst hours
- —Monthly cost
- —Monthly cost
- —Annual cost
- —Analyst hours per month
- —Full-time equivalent
- —Exceptions per month
- —Handled by a person
- —Cost per transaction
Move a parameter and the month re-divides: what matches, what breaks, what a rule clears, and what is left for a person.
The link carries the figures you entered, in the part of the address that is never sent to a server.
Change one assumption at a time. The model updates from the same calculation used for the reported result.
Try this
Keep the break rate fixed and increase automated clearing. Watch what disappears first: the manual queue, analyst hours, FTE requirement or cost.
How the model works
- The streamA month of transactions arrives at matching. Most pair up against the counterparty record and are never seen again.
- The breaksA small share does not match — a different identifier, a commission, an allocation. That share, not the volume, is what sets the work.
- The splitRules clear part of the breaks on their own. What they cannot resolve joins the queue a person works through, one item at a time.
- The billQueue times handling time gives the hours; hours times the rate gives the month. Automation moves the split, not the break rate.
Want to test this against your actual settlement workflow?
We can analyse your reconciliation process, work out what can realistically be matched automatically, and build the engine that does it.
Calculation basis 4 steps · view the method →
Exceptions = transactions × unmatched rate—Handled by a person = exceptions × (1 − automated share)—Analyst hours = exceptions handled × minutes each ÷ 60—Monthly cost = analyst hours × loaded hourly cost—
Assumptions & limitations Screening estimate for operations cost and automation business cases · 6 assumptions →
This is a screening estimate for building a business case, not an operating budget. Exceptions are not equal: a duplicate takes minutes and a disputed settlement can take days. Automation rates also vary by break type. Use your own measured mix before committing to a figure.
- Every exception takes the same average time, which understates the long tail.
- Automation is assumed to clear its share at no marginal cost per item.
- A working month is taken as 160 hours for the full-time equivalent.
- Chargeback and dispute handling are excluded — those are a separate, more expensive process.
- The cost of the breaks themselves — write-offs, interest, penalties — is excluded; this is the cost of the labour only.
- Supervision, quality assurance and reporting around the exception desk are excluded.
Worked examples
- Two million transactions, half a per cent unmatched, nothing automated
Open with these figures → - The same desk with 80 per cent cleared automatically
Open with these figures →
What this model reveals
The break rate is not the cost. What costs money is the share of breaks a person has to open, multiplied by the minutes each one takes. Automated clearing does not make breaks happen less often — it removes them from the queue before anyone touches them. The model keeps volume, exception rate and clearing rate apart so you can see which one the monthly figure is really following.
Go deeper
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