Wednesday 8 May 2013

The wait is over: Bank Recon 4.2.715.2505 is available

I am very excited to present the first release of the redesigned Manual Recon screen and Helper Data process. BankRecon 4.2.715.2505 is available for download from the Twenty57 website.

It has been a long time in the making but it is worth it. Please download and install it and give me your feedback on the process and the screen. There are still some improvements we have in mind, and I want to implement your suggestions as well. A big thank you to all the contributors, developers and designers who were part of this journey.

There are 2 features in this build not to do with Helper Data and the Manual Recon Screen:
  • The GL account number is now shown along side the GL Account Name on the Balancing Entry and Cashbook Allocation screens
  • Bug Fix - Bank Statements were being created in future periods if they existed for the account

New Manual Recon Screen and Helper Data Process Overview

There are 2 videos included in this post to help you get started, one on using the new screen and the other on setting up your Bank Details Import Definitions and Auto Reconciliation Rules to match the Helper Data.






  • The Parent Bank Detail record (contra from the file submitted to the bank) is automatically linked to a Bank Transaction where the transactions are in the same account, have the same amount and are within 5 days of each other. We only make the link if we can find a unique match and users can break links made in error. There is no way to stop the linking from happening
  • Once the link has been made the helper details will appear on the New Manual Recon screen where the users can include them in Manual Matches. The linked Bank Transaction is no longer available to use in recons. You can also set up Auto Recon rules to match these transactions off automatically. The benefit of this new process is that you can do 1-1 matches of the bank details information, rather than the cumbersome many-1 matches required up to now
  • We are making use of Lucene Search (similar to Google) instead of filters on the New Manual Recon screen so once this version is installed you will need to index your existing transactions. Depending on the size of your Database this could take anything from a few minutes to a few hours. I recommend running the index process overnight to minimise the impact on users. You can still use Bank Recon while the indexing is running, you just won't be able to Search on the New Manual Recon Screen
  • New transactions are automatically indexed when imported and the index is updated whenever a match is made or broken

Setting up the Indexing

  1. Run the msi
  2. Open Bank Recon and navigate to Setup>Site Configuration>General Settings (You need to be a Site Admin to see this menu item)
  3. There is a new Setting Index Path. Specify the folder you want to save the index files to. Ensure the Bank Recon Network User and Service Account User have access to this folder


  4. Navigate to Setup>Index Management and click Run

  5. Bank Recon will index all existing transactions. You can monitor the process through the Dashboard, viewing the Process Log (Admin>Process Log) and by checking the count of transactions in the IndexUpdateQueue Table. Once complete the count will be zero
  6. You can use this same process if you ever need to re-index your database. Every time the index process is run, the existing indexes are deleted and the entire database is re-indexed

Change to the Bank Details Import Definition

  • There is a new required field, Account Number. If you have existing definitions please add the account number to them so we can link the helper bank details to the parent bank transactions in the correct accounts. It uses the Cashbook Transaction Account map to map to the correct account

Setting up Recon Rules

  • There is an Inactive Easy rule set up on all Domains to help you get started. It gives an example of matching the Bank Details to the Cashbook Transactions using Group By
  • You should be able to make use of the Easy Rule Interface for most of your rules but you can still use the Advanced interface if you want to. There are three views provided to use in the rules. You will find details of them in the help links on the Add/Edit Advanced Rule screen
  • If the data hasn't been linked, it can still be matched using the old style helper rules

The New Manual Recon Screen

  • Users are navigated to this screen by clicking on the Unreconciled Counts for any account on the Dashboard, or by navigating to Reconciliation>New Manual Reconciliation Screen
  • The Old style screen is still part of this build. We will remove it in a future release once we are sure that we have ironed out all the issues in the new screen
  • Column Headings are pulled from the Cashbook Transaction Aliases on the Account Setup page
  • Linked Bank Transactions will not be available in either screen
  • Linked Bank Details are only available in the New screen
  • This screen is one long list of all transactions; Bank, Cashbook and Bank Details all mixed in with each other
  • View more transactions by scrolling down the page or find particular transactions by using the Search box at the top right
  • You can Group By, Include Matched Items and Search across accounts
  • You can still Load and Save profiles and create Balancing entries when you match transactions
  • You can order your transactions by clicking on the column heading

Future enhancements

  • The user can manually make links between Helper Details and Bank Transactions that we have missed
  • Provide a way to enrich the linking experience through the use of keywords