Almost every reconciliation starts with the bank statement. If it is incomplete, everything that follows is guesswork. The good news: most problems with statements are predictable, so a precise request prevents most of them.
Ask for every account, by name
Clients often send the main current account and forget the rest: a savings account, a second currency account, a business credit card, a payment provider balance. List each account in your checklist by name or the last four digits, so a missing one is obvious.
Specify the exact period
“September” can mean 1-30 September, or the statement the bank happened to generate in September. Ask for the full calendar month, from the first to the last day, and check the dates on the first and last page.
Prefer the original PDF export
A PDF downloaded from online banking is complete, searchable and carries the bank's own formatting. Screenshots and photos of a screen are not: they cut off transactions, hide balances and cannot be searched. If your software imports bank data, also ask for the CSV or other export your tools accept.
Check the opening and closing balance
The closing balance of August should equal the opening balance of September. If it does not, a statement or a page is missing. This one check catches most gaps in seconds.
The most common mistakes
- Missing pages - especially in multi-page PDFs printed and scanned again.
- Wrong period - a statement that ends on the 25th, or starts mid-month.
- Wrong account - a private account sent instead of the business one.
- Screenshots - partial, unreadable or without balances.
- Password-protected files - the client forgets to share the password.
Write the instruction once, reuse it every month
Put all of this into one sentence next to the checklist item: “PDF export from online banking for each business account, 1st to last day of the month, all pages.” Clients will follow it far more reliably than an explanation buried in an old e-mail.
When a statement is wrong, say exactly why
“Please resend” leads to the same file again. “The statement ends on 25 September - please export it to the 30th” gets the right file the first time.
In MonthDocs you can set one checklist item per account with its own instruction, and reject a file with a specific reason the client sees immediately.
