Getting an invoice paid is only part of the accounts receivable process. There’s still this entire process around reconciling your payments, where you (or some other poor schmuck) has to spend a few days every month manually matching transactions to the correct invoice and then updating the accounting system. If you’re surcharging on credit cards, you probably have two entries for every invoice. This is why you need automatic payment reconciliation.
It’s the kind of busy work that feels normal, but doesn’t have to be. And if you think about it, it’s exactly the type of routine work that should be automated.
Why automate reconciliations?
- Accuracy. Manual work has a higher error rate than automated work.
- Opportunity cost. You (or the aforementioned schmuck) could spend your time doing administrative busy work. Or you could spend that time doing literally anything else. Like, say, trying to find out who’s not paying you and why. You literally go from a task that has negative value to doing something that has positive value.
The reality is that a modern organization needs to run lean into order to contain costs and preserve margins. The best way to do that is to automate as much as possible. Replacing an error-prone slog with automated reconciliation should be a no-brainer.
Benji Pays uses automatic payment reconciliation to close that loop. Rather than treating payment processing and accounting as separate workflows, Benji Pays connects them so payment activity can flow back into the systems your business already relies on.
From invoice to payment to reconciliation
Benji Pays sits between your invoicing systems and your payment infrastructure.
Invoices are synchronized into Benji Pays from supported accounting platforms and business systems. Customers can then pay using options such as saved payment methods, autopay, scheduled payments, payment links, or the Benji Pays customer portal.
Because Benji Pays already knows which customer and invoice are associated with the transaction, it does not need to reconstruct that relationship after the fact.
When a payment is successfully processed, Benji Pays can automatically associate the transaction with the corresponding invoice and synchronize that payment information back to the connected system.
Instead of:
Invoice → Payment → Spreadsheet → Existential Dread → Accounting System
the workflow becomes:
Invoice → Payment → Automatic Reconciliation
The payment becomes part of the same connected data flow as the invoice itself. And notice that you also eliminate the existential dread, because instead of wasting time doing work you’d rather not do, it’s all done automatically and instantly.
More than matching a deposit
Automatic reconciliation is not simply about seeing that money reached the bank.
A single deposit from a payment processor may represent multiple customer transactions. Settlement amounts can also differ from the original invoice values because of processing fees, surcharges, refunds, or other transaction activity.
Benji Pays works at the transaction and invoice level, maintaining the relationship between what the customer paid and what the payment was intended to settle.
That creates a much cleaner reconciliation trail.
Depending on the connected system and configuration, Benji Pays can synchronize payment details, mark invoices appropriately, and record transaction information that helps accounting teams understand how the payment was processed.
For businesses using integrated PSA and accounting platforms, that information can also flow across multiple systems so teams are not manually updating the same invoice in several places.
Why automatic reconciliation matters
The most immediate benefit is less manual work. Finance teams no longer need to spend the end of each day matching payments against open invoices one transaction at a time.
But the larger benefit is data quality. Part of this is achieved by eliminating human error from the process, and the other part is achieved by eliminating procrastination from the process.
When reconciliation happens automatically, payment information reaches the accounting system faster and more consistently. That means fewer unmatched payments, fewer data-entry errors, and fewer situations where one system shows an invoice as paid while another still shows it as outstanding.
It also improves the quality of your accounts receivable reporting. Aging reports, outstanding balances, and customer account information are more useful when payment status is updated promptly. When you are faced with a tedious task you’d rather not do, you’re more apt to procrastinate. That lag creates a data quality problem. Eliminate the lag, eliminate the quality problem.
For operations teams, that means better visibility into what is actually outstanding. For leadership, it means financial reporting is based on more current information.
Automation across the entire invoice-to-cash lifecycle
Automatic reconciliation becomes even more valuable when combined with the rest of the Benji Pays workflow.
Invoice Rover can automatically communicate with customers about outstanding invoices. Autopay can process invoices according to configurable rules. Customers can pay through self-service payment experiences. And once payment happens, reconciliation updates the systems of record.
Each piece removes another manual handoff.
The result is an invoice-to-cash process where businesses can automate not only how they get paid, but what happens after they get paid.
Accounts receivable automation moves money, quickly, seamlessly, and without fuss.
Automatic reconciliation makes sure the rest of your business knows where that money belongs.
Talk us to us to learn more.
