Solving that thorny Helper Data issue

One of the biggest pains our clients face is reconciling the bulk payments or collections on their Bank Statement to the appropriate expected transactions. There are often upwards of 15 000 cashbook transactions which need to be reconciled to a single bank transaction. A laborious and very difficult task to do manually!

Bank Recon has allowed you to import 'Helper Data' for a while now. This is the breakdown of the Bank Statement entry into the details and is usually generated by your payment system or supplied by the bank. However you can only make use of it in rather complicated Recon rules. And if the Recon rules can't make the match (can't find a unique match, can't uniquely identify the cashbook transactions to use, can't find enough of the Cashbook Transactions) the user is left to do the matching manually with no access to this very valuable Helper Data.

So we decided to see what we could do to fix this. And the result is almost ready for release. We automatically link the Helper Data to the correct Bank Transaction and then 'replace' the one Bank line with its details. These details can then be used in Easy Recon rules (and simpler advanced rules) to make many 1-1 matches rather than one big 1-many match. And the User also has access to these details from the Manual Recon screen.

What this change also led to is a whole new Manual Recon screen. The 'old' screen is, well, very old. There is a lot of hard coded information in it which makes it difficult to change. So we decided to build a new one that would allow us to include the Helper Data, and also make some changes to the filters and layout that we have been wanting to do for a while but haven't been able to get right in the current screen.

Both Cashbook and Bank are included in one endless list of transactions rather than separate grids and it makes use of Search rather than filters. Group by,  Search across accounts and Profiles are all still there, plus we've added the ability to include matched items in your search.

We are busy with the final tweaks and some usability testing and then it will be released to the world for implementation and feedback. We won't be embarking on any major new developments in Bank Recon over the next few months in order to get your feedback and rapidly include it. I know this will be a big change for many users and may take some getting used to but it will be a beneficial change in the long run.

To wet your appetite here is a sneak preview of what the new screen will look like. Enjoy!

Version 4.2.594.2229 is available

Bank Recon 4.2.594.2229 is available for download from the Twenty57 website.

It contains a fix for the Transaction Details link on the Manual Recon screen when you group transactions which was not working.

It feels like there have been a flurry of releases lately with bug fixes, most of them small. While I don't like bugs creeping into our software, the fact they are being discovered means people are using Bank Recon and upgrading regularly which is great to see! These are all bugs introduced because we have been busy improving existing functionality (sometimes big changes, sometimes small tweaks) to make your daily experience better. Thank you for sticking along with us and for your patience with the bugs. I hope we are meeting your expectations in fixing them quickly, and of course we are doing our best to keep all gremlins out of the system!

Bank Recon 4.2.590.2222 is available

One fix is included in this build. It will affect you if you are installing Bank Recon on Windows Server 2008.

We perform dependency checks as part of the upgraded install. The MSDTC check on Server 2008 was failing in some instances. This build addresses that. Please download version 4.2.590.2222 from the Twenty57 website.

Bank Recon 4.2.588.2218 is available

Bank Recon 4.2.588.2218 is available for download from the Twenty57 website.

It contains a critical bug fix if you have any Auto Recon Rules with 'Run across Accounts' active and no account id specified in the sort order or match definition of your rule and are running version 4.2.446.1978 (released 22 March 2012) or later. Manual Recon across accounts and Transfers (auto and manual) are not affected. Normal rules which match within an account are also not affected.

The rules were not creating the cashbook balancing entries needed to keep the accounts balanced. The different recons per account and the transfer batches were being created. If you think you may have been affected please contact me so I can help you sort out any incomplete recons which may have been made and provide upgrade support if necessary.

This build also contains some memory usage improvements around the Suggest process.

We are now redesigning the Manual Recon screen and Helper Data process to make it easier to use the details imported in reconciliations. This will be the next major release of Bank Recon, I will provide time frames on the Road Map soon.

Msi changes in the latest release

In yesterday's blog post I forgot to list one of the biggest changes released in version 4.2.580.2206. Our much more streamlined, much easier to use msi! You can get this version from the Twenty57 website.

• There is only one install option instead of three
• Bank Recon will automatically populate the install path with the one you are using (from the registry) for an upgrade. This msi will 'remember' your path so you will need to select it once more. Thereafter it should be remembered
• You can now specify an existing database on a clean install. Bank Recon will check if the DB exists and if yes, then update it. If not then Bank Recon will try and create it
• Test your Database Connection before you proceed. For an upgrade we test the connection to the Database specified. For a clean install we only test that the credentials supplied can connect to the server. We don't validate the database since we don't know if it exists or must be created.
• New Database Updater (on the off chance you need to use it). It allows you to specify the timeout (in seconds) which is very useful if you are updating a very large database. 

I hope this makes upgrades and installs much less painful going forward.

Bank Recon version 4.2.580.2206 released

There is a new build of Bank Recon available. Please download version 4.2.580.2206  from the Twenty57 website.

We have made changes which will make it easier for you to manage your accounting periods and help you simplify your recon rules. And we are continually making small changes to all the interfaces which should improve everyone's experiences - whether you are a daily or occasional Bank Recon user.

New Features

• Auto Refresh of the Dashboard. Default Refresh time is 10 seconds. You can change this in the Setup>Site Configuration>General screen
• Menu Items Domain Group Wizard and Domain Wizard have been removed. Please set up a Daily Process Schedule instead
• Process Dashboard: Display User who initiated the Daily Process Schedule. If the process is on a schedule display "ScheduleUser"
• Cashbook Batches Screen: Show actual create user not current logged in User
• Recon Rules: Only show Active GL Accounts in the GL Account Mappings dropdown list. If you currently are mapping to an inactive GL account your rules will still run. If you open the rule to edit it you will need to remap the GL Accounts.
•  Recon Rules: Only show Active Bank Accounts when mapping GL accounts per account
• Recon Type column added to the Recon table to more easily identify Auto matches (Id 1), Manual Matches (ID 2) and Suggest Matches (ID 3).
• Manual Recon Screen: Tool tip on Tag Count which shows the names of the associated tags
• Popups: Allow users to interact with the screen while popups are open (Help tips on the Setup screens)
• Performance improvement when Manually transferring a large number of Cashbook Transactions
• Accounting Periods: Accounting Period will now be created automatically if it does not exist when needed (imports, reconciliations, transfers). The default period is one month. If you need anything else you can still create it manually. Old account periods cannot be edited or deleted.
• Easy Recon Rules: Group by added to Easy Recon rules. In the Dataset Selection and Criteria you can specify a Group by clause. ID is always included as Count(ID) so we can identify the underlying transactions that need to be reconciled. You can set up all match definitions as you currently do and all Regex supported in the Advanced rules is also supported in the easy rules.

Bug Fixes

• Search across Accounts: Match Selected Transactions
• Manual Recon Screen: Fix Tag link error

Thank you to Jai and the team for the work. The next piece of functionality we are tackling is the helper data. We want to surface the helper transactions imported to make it easier to use them in Manual, Auto and Suggest Recons and allow you to do partial matches. To do this effectively we are redesigning the Manual Recon screen. We won't remove the current one immediately - don't worry! Both will exist side to side while we test and refine the new screen and the helper data process.

So if you have any thoughts and concerns around Helper data please let me know.

Bank Recon 4.2.517.2101 is available

Bank Recon version 4.2.517.2101 is available for download from the Twenty57 website. It contains a number of small tweaks on the Manual Recon screen and the Open Cashbook Batches and Transactions screens to make using Bank Recon easier.

Manual Recon Screen Features:

• Easier Balancing Entry allocation and reconciliation process. It is now simpler to add multiple allocations when you create the balancing entry, we prevent you creating the entry if the amount and allocations do no match and instead of having to save the balancing entry, then go back to the manual recon screen and click Reconcile, you can now 'Save and Reconcile' in one step.

• Removed the vertical scroll bar from the transaction frames
• Move transactions to the matched section without refreshing the entire screen
• Clicking Back on the browser from the Balancing Entry Cashbook Allocation screen no longer creates the entry in error.

Open Cashbook Batches and Transactions Screen Features:

• Highlight the allocated amount in red when it is different to the batch or transaction amount
• Only show the Approve batch tick if the allocated amount equals the batch amount
• Order the Cashbook transactions by reconciliation status, allocated amount<> transaction amount and then date. So the Unreconciled transactions will be on top, then those which have an incorrect allocation and then everything else
• Move the delete icon for Unreconciled transactions in an open batch to the left so that it is easier to see and link to the correct transaction
• Enabled the Back button on the Remove reconciliation screen so you can return to the transactions easily

Remember, you can only delete a transaction in an open batch if it is Unreconciled. You can fix an incorrect allocation for any transaction though, reconciled or unreconciled. You do this by clicking on the allocated amount link - which will be in red if it is incorrect. 

Other Features:

• Enable Match Selected on the Bank and Cashbook Transaction screens for Search across Accounts selected on accounts where transfer of transactions is allowed.
• Rollback the last imported Bank Statement. There is a new screen Transactions>Rollback Bank Statement which will allow you to rollback the last imported statement per parser. So if you import statements from different banks you will be able to remove the last one of each of the banks independently. Only the last imported statement for each parser is shown and rollback will remove any tags and recons associated with the bank transactions. Admin and Managers have access to this screen.
• Import a Bank Statement across an entire Domain Group

Bug Fixes:

• Test Bank Details Import definition is now working
• Removed error message shown on Tag screen when there is no email address in Active Directory