Reconciling Between Systems

A join fails silently. The only way to know is to compare both ends deliberately, on a schedule.

The four comparisons

Headcount: people in each system, and who exists in one and not another.

Reference data: the department, site and cost centre lists, compared for entries that differ.

Hours: what time capture sent against what payroll received against what was paid.

Absence: absences recorded against gaps in the time record, in both directions.

Each is a query. Together they take an hour.

What each usually finds

Headcount: leavers still active in scheduling, and starters missing from payroll.

Reference data: the same department with two codes, which reconciles by eye and not by machine.

Hours: a small recurring difference at one site, which is a configuration finding.

Absence: gaps with no reason, and reasons with no gap.

There are always some. An organisation finding none has not looked properly.

Running it

Monthly, before the pay run rather than after.

By the person who owns the chain, because the follow-up crosses departments.

With the differences investigated rather than absorbed, which is the part that gets skipped when the period is closing.

Record what was found and what caused it, because the second occurrence should be a shorter investigation.

Reading the trend

Difference count, per comparison, per month.

Stable and small is normal drift.

Rising means a join is degrading, frequently after a change nobody flagged.

A step change points at a date, and that date usually has an upgrade or a reorganisation on it.

What not to do

Do not net the differences off. A hundred plus and a hundred minus is not zero; it is two hundred errors.

Do not correct without finding the cause, which turns a reconciliation into a monthly manual task forever.

Do not run it after payroll, which finds errors that have already been paid.

The measure that matters

Manual corrections at period end, and hours spent on them.

A working reconciliation reduces both, which is how the practice justifies its own time.

And where it does not, the joins need fixing rather than checking more often.

Run it before the pay run

Not after.

A reconciliation after payroll finds errors that have already been paid, which converts a correction into a repayment conversation.

Before it, the same finding is an adjustment nobody outside the process notices.

The date matters more than the thoroughness, and a shorter check on time beats a complete one late.

Connect policy and data

The choices in this note can be compared with accounting time tracking tools. Keep the written purpose in control and enable only the information needed at this boundary.

Independent reference

For a thematic point of reference, see AICPA & CIMA. Consult the source directly because technical, operational and legal details change.