How to reconcile supplier statements
Reconcile a supplier statement by confirming the supplier and period, tying the balances you have, standardizing the fields, separating exact evidence from review items, and keeping a workpaper a person can trace.
Method last reviewed:
Teams that call this vendor statement reconciliation follow the same steps. SupplierRecon does not treat vendor and supplier as two products. Work through the nine steps in order. When both files are CSV or XLSX, open the reconciliation tool.
1. Confirm the supplier and date range
Why. Matching the wrong supplier or the wrong period can produce a tidy file that does not describe the account.
Check. Supplier name or account, statement date, and whether the AP export is one supplier or many. Both files should be meant to cover the same relationship and cut-off.
Common mistake. Starting on a multi-supplier AP export before the supplier filter is confirmed. In SupplierRecon, exact matching stays off until that scope is confirmed.
Done when. You can name the supplier and the period, and you know which AP rows are in scope.
2. Tie opening balance, period activity, and closing balance
Why. A line match cannot repair an export that does not add up.
Check. Where the statement shows opening balance, invoices, credits, payments, and closing balance, tie that arithmetic. Tie the AP export total to the source-system report by currency.
Common mistake. Treating a matching closing balance as proof the lines agree. A missing invoice and a missing credit of the same amount can hide inside one total. Why the two files differ is a separate question from this checklist.
Done when. The balance arithmetic you have is tied, or you have noted that the statement does not provide balances.
3. Standardize references, dates, amounts, and currency
Why. A reference, a date, an amount, and a currency have to mean the same thing on both sides before they can be compared.
Check. Keep invoice and credit numbers as text. Confirm date order, decimal and grouping separators, credit signs, and debit or credit direction. Keep the original columns so a normalized value can be traced to the source cell.
Common mistake. Letting a spreadsheet turn a long invoice number into scientific notation, or mixing document dates and posting dates without noticing. If the headers do not match, the Excel template is a shared column layout. It does not perform the match.
Done when. Each side has a confirmed reference, amount, date format, and currency treatment.
4. Check unique exact matches
Why. Unique agreement on reference, amount, and currency is the only result SupplierRecon will call Exact. The code is EXACT_UNIQUE_1_1. Tolerance and similar text are not Exact. The methodology defines each code.
Check. The normalized reference, the amount in integer minor units, and the currency occur once on the statement and once on the AP ledger. Supplier scope is confirmed. If both dates exist, they fall inside the confirmed date window.
Common mistake. Accepting a duplicated reference because the amounts look right.
Done when. Repeated keys are held out, and only the unique one-to-one results are marked Exact.
These figures are invented. Statement invoice NS-1001 for 480.00 USD appears once, and the AP export has NS-1001 for 480.00 USD once. That is the shape of a unique one-to-one exact key. If the AP file also contains a second NS-1001 for 480.00 USD, the duplicated key stays out of Exact and needs review. Northshore figures elsewhere on this site are fictional too. This is not a customer case.
5. Review one-to-many, many-to-one, and other candidates
Why. One supplier invoice is sometimes several AP lines, or several statement lines sit against one AP posting.
Check. Same supplier and currency, dates inside the period logic, and the parts sum to the statement amount. If more than one group sums to that amount, do not pick one because it appeared first.
Common mistake. Treating a suggested group as an Exact match. SupplierRecon can suggest one statement row to several AP rows. It does not build many-statement-to-one-AP groups. Those stay manual.
Done when. One group is supported by the source rows, or the item stays unmatched.
6. Investigate missing invoices, credits, duplicates, and timing
Why. What remains is usually an accounting difference, not a broken formula.
Check. Invoices on the statement that are absent from AP, credits on only one side, duplicate rows, and dates that cross the cut-off. “Possible duplicate” and “possible unused credit” are review labels, not facts.
Common mistake. Clearing an unmatched credit because the closing balance still looks acceptable.
Done when. Each leftover has a next step: post it, ask the supplier, move it to another period, or leave it open.
7. Complete control totals
Why. Control totals show whether every loaded row and amount was classified.
Check. By source and currency: valid rows plus excluded rows equal input rows. Exact rows plus manually accepted rows plus unmatched rows equal valid rows. Input amount equals matched, unmatched, and excluded amounts.
Common mistake. Reading a zero difference as proof that the supplier balance is correct or that the export was complete.
Done when. The classification difference for the loaded files is zero, and that zero has not been used to skip the open items.
8. Retain a reviewable workpaper
Why. Someone who was not in the room needs the source row, the rule, and the decision.
Check. File, sheet, and row; raw and normalized values; result code; candidates considered; reviewer reason; exception category; control totals; and run parameters. Keep the original exports under your own retention rules.
Common mistake. Saving only a list of matched invoice numbers. The input template and the workpaper are different files. SupplierRecon writes the eleven-sheet workpaper after a run, including a run manifest.
Done when. The workpaper can be traced back to the two source files.
9. Record matters requiring human judgment
Why. Some differences are accounting judgments. A key match does not settle them.
Check. Unresolved disputes, cut-off, account coding, tax, foreign exchange, payment status, and approvals.
Common mistake. Treating Exact as permission to pay, or as an audit conclusion.
Done when. Open judgments are written down with an owner. Exact means the loaded rows met the deterministic rule.
The reconciliation is ready for the next review in your organization when the intended population is supported, every loaded row is classified, material differences have an owner and a next step, control totals are documented, and a reviewer can trace a result to the source records.