What are the challenges of credit card reconciliation and how to deal with them?
However, performing the reconciliation accurately and periodically is not always easy, especially in larger companies. In addition to the natural challenges of the process, it must occur without harming the company’s other activities.
Want to learn how to deal with credit card reconciliation challenges? Then continue reading this article and find out how to do this financial management efficiently.
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What is credit card reconciliation?
Credit card reconciliation is part of the enterprise’s financial reconciliation — an important procedure for keeping the business finances in order. It consists of checking the different financial data provided by the operators.
The purpose is to analyze the information about purchases made in your company to check if there are inconsistencies between internal and external data. For this, issues related to amounts paid, deadlines and discounts are analyzed.
If there are differences in the information, it is necessary to contact the operator to verify the reason for the inconsistency and request correction. In medium and large companies, it is essential to check more frequently, due to the higher sales volume.
How important is credit card reconciliation?
Now that you know what credit card reconciliation is, you need to understand its relevance to your business.
Check out the information below!
Facilitates organization and development
Credit card is one of the most used means of payment by consumers. Therefore, this conciliation process is of great importance and brings different benefits to the company’s financial organization.
One of the main advantages is having a complete view of all costs charged by acquirers. In addition, the manager will also know the exact amounts that will be received, as well as the deadlines for depositing the amount.
This financial control allows the company to have better budget planning. With this, the conditions for implementing strategies to expand the business become clearer, as the availability of resources can be perceived quickly.
Credit card reconciliation also makes companies adopt responsible financial behavior, recovering more easily the money lost due to process failures, for example. In this way, it helps to increase the profit margin of the enterprise.
Avoid financial management problems
When the company does not have a well-structured card reconciliation, reliable data for decision-making is lacking and the chances of errors increase. Therefore, this process serves to avoid problems and difficulties in management.
One of the problems that can be avoided is spending on undue charges, for example. They can occur when operators discount rates in duplicate or different from those agreed with the company.
What are the challenges of credit card reconciliation?
Despite the benefits generated by credit card reconciliation, it is not always easy to carry out the process properly and periodically. Therefore, it is necessary to know the main challenges present in credit card reconciliation so that they can be solved or avoided in the company.
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Monitor sales types
One of the main difficulties in credit card reconciliation is monitoring different types of sales. Imagine, for example, that on the same day several sales are made in debit, in cash and in installments in different installments.
Both the deadline and the amount to be received will be different in each of these sales. It is essential that the company has the means to record and monitor these movements. Otherwise, this could lead to a lack of control over the company’s positive cash balance.
track rates
Another challenge in carrying out the reconciliation procedure is to track the different administration fees for the means of payment that the company offers. Each transaction carried out by card may have a different fee. Therefore, failing to account for them will harm your financial management .
Control chargebacks
Chargeback is a customer protection mechanism, functioning as a kind of chargeback made by the operator and covered by the person who made the sale. Despite being essential to ensure consumer safety, it is also possible that it is used as a means of fraud.
Therefore, managers and teams must develop strategies to prevent amounts from being reversed in cases of completed purchases.
Maintain team productivity
Depending on how credit card reconciliation is performed at the company, it can take up a lot of employee time. This situation tends to jeopardize the progress of other processes. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize management to avoid a drop in team productivity.
How to deal with these challenges in medium and large companies?
So far, you have understood what credit card reconciliation is, its importance and also its challenges. In view of this, the question arises: how to implement this process efficiently in companies, managing to overcome the challenges inherent to it?
To answer this question, follow the tips below:
Record sales daily
The first step to overcoming reconciliation challenges is tracking credit card sales on a daily basis. In this sense, medium and large companies need to rely on technology so that this registration is done in detail and no relevant information is lost.
Keep track of fees charged
The fees charged by credit card operators directly influence the final value of products and the closing of the cash register. Therefore, it is essential to monitor these rates periodically.
Adopting this attitude is useful both for identifying changes and adapting your strategies to the amounts charged and for realizing the moment to seek better conditions from other suppliers.
Use a financial BPO
As you can see, carrying out reconciliation is a complex procedure that requires specific knowledge. Furthermore, in larger companies it is necessary to optimize time and avoid errors due to the large amount of information involved in the process.
Therefore, it is worth resorting to a financial BPO (Business Process Outsourcing). It consists of outsourcing the management of the processes that most interfere with a company’s finances. The solution can optimize activities and avoid bottlenecks in the sector.
