Electronic Reconcile is a great tool for automating the Bank Reconcile process. It is an especially great tool for companies that have a high volume of transactions. Electronic Reconcile will match up transactions in Dynamics GP based on a file that is downloaded from your online bank.

Once the Configurator and Download Maintenance are setup, using Electronic Reconcile is relatively easy to use and normal users will be able to use this tool effectively.

The hard part is configuring Electronic Reconcile so that the process is smooth for the end user. The first step is to find out what options are available from your online banking system for downloading account history. Most banks have the option to download a Comma Delimited file.

You will want to download some transactions to see what the data format is for the downloaded file. This is important because you will need to see compare your raw data to what it needs to become in order to download the transactions into Dynamics GP.

The file downloaded into Dynamics GP can be either in Fixed Field, Comma Delimited, or Tab Delimited format. I recommend Tab Delimited. There are six fields that need to be present for each transaction line in the data that will be downloaded into Dynamics GP: Transaction Date, Account number, Transaction amount, Check number, Record Type Code, and Transaction Code. The last two are critical, and may not be part of the data that comes from the bank.

The Transaction Code is what designates what type of transaction this line is, such as whether it is a check or deposit. If your bank does not have this as part of the output file, it will need to be added to the file that is downloaded into Dynamics GP.

The Record Type Code designates whether this transaction line is part of the Header, Detail Line, or Footer of the download file. In order to download into Dynamics GP, only Detail Lines are required. If this field does not come from the bank data, it will need to be added to the file downloaded into Dynamics GP.

Since there are typically a number format changes and data that may not be part of the output file from your bank, I recommend creating a script that changes the output from the bank into the required format for Dynamics GP. This way you can create a file that will work well with Dynamics GP, resulting in fewer download errors.

Configuring the Download Maintenance comes down to selecting the correct Configuration combined with the correct bank information. It is also necessary to decide where the file that comes from the script will be located, as a path needs to be specified in the Download Maintenance. This means that the file will need to be located in the same place, and will replace the previous file. If not then the Download Maintenance would need to be edited each time before the transactions are downloaded to reflect the new location of the file.

Once the configuration is complete for Electronic Reconcile, and the information downloads into Dynamics GP accurately, Bank Reconciles will take less time for your users.