Reconciliation
Reconciliation is checking your invoice records against your actual bank statement to confirm every payment you think came in really did, and every payment that landed is accounted for. Do it monthly, not just when a number looks wrong.
What it means
It’s easy to mark an invoice “paid” from memory, or from a text a client sent saying “just sent it” — and just as easy for that payment to never actually land, or to land as a different amount than expected. Reconciliation is the habit of sitting your invoice list next to your bank statement and confirming they actually agree, line by line.
It also catches errors that don’t announce themselves: a duplicate payment, a bank fee that quietly ate part of a transfer, a client who paid the wrong invoice number. None of those show up unless you’re comparing the two records side by side on a regular schedule.
Your records show invoice #1038 paid on the 12th. Checking the bank statement, the deposit that day is $40 short of the invoice total — the client’s bank took a transfer fee out of their end. Reconciling catches the $40 gap before it gets lost in the noise.
Marking invoices paid based on a client’s word (“sent it!”) without ever checking the bank statement — small discrepancies pile up quietly for months before anyone notices the total doesn’t add up.
See also
Where this shows up
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