Simplifying Bank Reconciliation in Odoo: A Comprehensive Guide

01.

Payment Posting to an Outstanding Account.

When you register a payment in Odoo, it doesn't immediately post the transaction to the bank’s general ledger (GL) account. Instead, Odoo posts it to an outstanding account. This approach ensures that the bank's GL account is only adjusted when the actual bank transaction occurs (either through importing a bank statement or syncing bank transactions).

This method offers a significant advantage: it ensures that the bank GL account always matches the actual bank account. There’s no need to manually adjust the bank GL account for undeposited funds, as they remain in the outstanding account until the bank confirms the transaction.

02.

An Extra Layer of Control.

Odoo provides an additional control layer utilizing the outstanding or bank suspense account. If there’s a wrong reconciliation, a balance will remain in the outstanding account. This balance serves as a red flag, prompting bookkeepers to investigate and resolve any issues before they become more significant problems.

This feature is particularly useful for identifying discrepancies early on, ensuring that your financial records remain accurate and reliable.

03.

Handling Foreign Exchange Differences.

For businesses dealing with foreign currencies, Odoo simplifies the process of accounting for differences in foreign exchange. If a payment in a foreign currency is registered on one date and cleared on another, Odoo automatically accounts for any foreign exchange differences. This automatic adjustment ensures that your financial statements accurately reflect the real value of your transactions, avoiding potential misstatements.

04.

Automatic Reconciliation.

Odoo takes automation a step further with its reconciliation models. These models allow users to set specific rules for automatic reconciliation, saving both time and effort. Once set up, these models can automatically reconcile transactions that meet the defined criteria, reducing the need for manual intervention and speeding up the reconciliation process.

05.

Bank Feeds.

5.1

Bank Online Synchronization

One of Odoo's most powerful features is its capability to sync directly with your bank. This reduces the time spent importing the statement, increases accuracy, and ensures your bank balance is up-to-date.

This integration is facilitated by third-party services provided by several financial institutions. Currently, Odoo is using Yodlee(https://www.yodlee.com/) and Plaid (https://plaid.com/) in North America. Saltedge (https://www.saltedge.com/) is an additional financial service Odoo uses in Europe and other parts of the world.

However, it is important to understand that occasional disconnections may occur. These disconnections can happen for various reasons, most of the time due to changes in the bank's security protocols, temporary issues with the bank's servers, third-party financial institutions involved in data extraction, or the Odoo API server linking the financial services servers with your Odoo instance.

When disconnection occurs, Odoo typically alerts the user, who can then re-establish the connection with a few clicks. Regular monitoring and prompt re-syncing can help ensure that your financial data remains up to date.

5.2

Import Statement

Different formats for importing statements 

Importing bank statements is also available, and Odoo supports a variety of formats for importing bank statements, making it flexible for different banking systems worldwide. The most common formats include:

Which one should be used in North America / Canada? Here is our pick:

TIER A - Use these if available (in this order):

• OFX
• QIF

These formats incorporate smart features like detecting duplicate lines and balance totals. So you could import the same file multiple times or overlapping dates without causing duplicates in Odoo.

TIER B - Use these only if OFX or QIF are not available:

• XLS, XLSX
• CSV

TIER C - Use these as a last resort or if you need to catch up on old statement imports.

• PDF
• JPEG
• PNG

Starting with v.18 - OCR and artificial intelligence to convert into a softcopy. Use only if OFX and QIF or CSV/XLS/XLSX are unavailable. By supporting these formats, Odoo ensures that all users can easily import bank statements regardless of their banking provider.

5.3

Manually Input

Depending on your volume, you can manually add the bank entries when you receive your bank statement.