Search from the Manual Recon Screen Demo

It can happen that the transaction(s) you need for a match have already been reconciled. It used to be a time consuming process to navigate to the View Bank/Cashbook Transaction screen, try remember what you need to search for, find the transaction, break the existing match, go back to the Manual Recon screen, find the transaction you have just unreconciled, load it into the matched section and finally create the right reconciliation.

All that has changed.

There is now the ability to search directly from the Manual Recon screen for those transactions you just can't seem to find in the unmatched transaction list. I hope you enjoy the new functionality. Watch the video for a short tutorial (2:20 min) on how to use this feature. The video is hosted on you tube so it displays at 360p by default. Which is fine if you view it in the blog directly but looks a bit fuzzy if viewed in full screen. If you want to view it in full screen mode change the quality (click on the cog on the bottom right between the cc and the clock icons) to 480p or 720p depending on your bandwidth.

If you would rather read about the new functionality please go to the Bank Recon webhelp.

This is our first Bank Recon Demo video so let me know what you think and if you found it useful. I plan to add more help videos and introductory demo's soon.

Best practices for good Recon Rule design

I have been focusing on recon rules and how they perform for the last few months. Some great dev work has been done to improve the auto matching, but it is also possible to get significant performance gains by implementing good rule design.

To give you an idea of how impressive the gains can be:
The 'worst' performing Domain in our testing only showed an improvement of 14% between the old and new code. After applying some of the tips below to the rules, there was a 50% improvement in the time taken for the rules to execute. These rules were run on large data sets, but the gains are equally noticeable on recon counts of 1000 and less.

New Code, original rules (hh:mm:ss) m1.Large Instance	New code, tweaked rules (hh:mm:ss) m1.Large Instance	% Improvement
4:00:30	2:01:16	49.5%

General Guidelines (in no particular order):

• Specify exact matches in the Command SortOrder for both LHS and RHS rather than in the match Section of the rule.
• Try include at least one exact match criteria - even just the AccountId match
• Sort your SQL queries in the same order you specify the matches.
• Always sort the SQL queries and always sort LHS and RHS in the same way.
• Use (noLock) in the SQL.
• Only return the columns you need, not everything.
• Filter your data sets to exclude blank values, zero amounts and other records which won't produce a match for that rule.
• Use @CurrentDomainID (case-sensitive).
• Limit the data sets to recent transactions. If a record hasn't auto-matched in the last 90 days (or less) it is unlikely to recon now.
• When working with grouped data sets exclude 'groups' of 1 transaction. Grouped data sets make use of the GetKeys command whether the group is one or many and this takes more time. Rather do a separate rule for 1-1 matches.
• Set the priority of your rules - this helps ensure the best matches are made first.
• If values have changed fields ( eg from Details to Reference1), after an initial phase in period, remove the old matching criteria. 'Or' command in the regex will slow down the rule.
• Try get the matching value in SQL and use SortOrder to make the match rather than use Regex in a match definition.
• Limit the number of Recon Rules.
• Review the rule performance periodically. I can provide scripts to do this.
• Make use of Helper Rules.
• Make use of the TemporaryTableCommand.

Not all of the above can be applied to all rules and sometimes a change may make things worse. Use your discretion and always test a tweak first to make sure that you are still matching the correct stuff and that there is actually a performance gain. There are those rules where very specific matching criteria may mean a trade off with performance but try limit them!

If you have other tips please let me know about them. I am always trying to grow the Bank Recon knowledge base.

Suggest Release

I am very excited to present the new Suggest functionality. I truly believe it is going to add value to Bank Recon and make it a more dynamic product.


Thank you to Anand, Ameet and Amol for the fantastic development work done; and to Franz and Carien for the usability guidance and design input. A special thanks to all the users who made themselves available for the prototype testings and provided the feedback to ensure we are delivering what you need.


Please download Version 4.1.298.1661 from http://www.twenty57.com/twenty57/BankRecon/Download.aspx?product=BankRecon


What is Suggest?

Users are presented with possible matches based on common words, date ranges and amounts which they can either reconcile or ignore.  Matching words are highlighted and the user can decide whether words give useful matches and should be used for future suggestions or not.


Franz's post gives more information on how Suggest works and the usablity testing and the Bank Recon webhelp also includes information on using the Suggest functionality.


Installation Notes:
If you are upgrading from a previous version '4.1.xxx' of Bank Recon, the following needs to be added to the config files:
    appSettings section of web.config:
        <add key="ConfigManagerURL" value="tcp://localhost:8087/ConfigManager"/>
    service secion of App.config of ProcessService:
        <wellknown type="Twenty57.BankRecon.API.ManualReconSuggestions.ConfigManagerProxy, Twenty57.BankRecon.API" mode="SingleCall"objectUri="ConfigManager" />


Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator must be installed on the application server and the Database server.


Setup Notes:
You need to have Site Administrator rights to access the Suggest Configuration Setup screens. The default settings applied when the version is installed are optimised for most environments. Simply make the process active. You may want to add additional match criteria according to the business needs.


I recommend running the process for the 1st time outside of core business hours because a large dictionary of keywords is loaded and the initial run may process a large number of unreconciled transactions. Thereafter it will run in the background continually while activated.


If you experience performance degradation, adjust the config settings as described in the webhelp. Additional setup information is also available on the page.


The 'Suggest Reconciliation' Menu right will need to be given to the appropriate user groups so that they can see the screens.


I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences using Suggest and all ideas on extending the functionality. Please let me know about any issues you experience and thoughts you have 

Bank Recon Web Services

Bank Recon uses simple SOAP web services ( find more on SOAP here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP) which allow for the bi-directional transfer of data.

All methods and their details can be found by navigating to the web services url: http://localhost/bankrecon/WebServices/WebServices.asmx on the server hosting the web site, or replace localhost with the server name if browsing remotely.

The methods defined perform many of the standard Bank Recon functions including imports, reconciliations, cashbook transfers, general ledger export and viewing, editing and deleting detail. They require a username, password and Domain Group Id, Domain Id or Account Id. Some also require a particular Transaction Id or definition name (recon rule name, GL Export definition name etc) in order to execute.

Default and Disable a Report Parameter in Bank Recon

To ensure that a user can only run a report for the selected Domain and Account the parameters in the RDL need to be named as follows (case is important):
domainid
accountid

To do this:

1. Right click outside the Report on the Layout Tab to open the Parameter box
2. Name your parameter domainid or accountid (as required for the particular report)
3. Specify the label and Available values

This then 'matches' to the Application Report Parameter values and defaults and disables the dropdowns.

If the report is run on the Domain level with no account selected, the Domain parameter will be disabled but an account can still be chosen. Running the Report at a Domain Group level will allow the user to chose the required domain from the dropdown (dependent on the query used to return the data)

If you don't ever want the parameters to be disabled simply name them to something different or change the case.

Bank Recon Help Pages

If you are running version  4.1.143.1399 (Released August 2010)  or later you can setup the help. The help is hosted on the Twenty57 website and can be accessed directly from Bank Recon. 


To set it up you need to be a site administrator:

• Navigate to Setup>Site Configuration>General
• There is a Value WebHelp URL under the General Section
• Paste the following into the text box: http://www.twenty57.com/WebHelp/Contents.aspx?projectid=2
• Click Save

The Contents menu item will now be visible under the Help parent menu and is accessible to all users.

Bank Recon help includes both Daily User content as well as setup information. If you have any ideas on how to improve the help or think something is missing from it please let me know.