How to use BREC
How to use BREC
BREC is used for reconciling bank accounts of the Nominal Ledger, the first requirement to use this program is the existence of the accounts in the NOM. BREC will accept any Nominal Ledger balance sheet account for reconciliation.
BREC displays two forms in order. The first form is used for three purposes: registering bank accounts for their first reconciliation, editing reconciliation details and printing reconciliation reports. The second form is where the marking of documents and entering of new data takes place in order to achieve full reconciliation.
It is important to note certain rules in the use of BREC before starting to use it:
BREC Rules
Entering a bank account for its first reconciliation: BREC cannot reconcile any account unless it is "registered" for reconciliation. This registration is done by opening BREC, entering the
Edit mode (Mouse right click, Edit or clicking on the Edit toolbar icon) and entering an account number and other details in a row on the grid of the form. The most important information is the Bank Account number entered in the first column of a row. The account title will appear automatically in the grey title field. Then you must enter the currency of the bank reconciliation. The Date and Balance fields correspond to the date of the bank statement and the balance of the bank statement.
Bank statements and ITAS Nominal Ledger accounts: BREC establishes a link between an ITAS Nominal Ledger account that represents a bank with the statements sent by this bank to the company. Banks normally send statements separating transactions per currency. This is not so for ITAS Nominal Ledger accounts. In ITAS these accounts are multi-currency. This means that postings to a Nominal Ledger account can be done in any currency (provided it is setup in ITAS). This difference is overcome in BREC by allowing the registration of more than one reconciliation record per bank account. In fact for full reconciliation, the number of currencies in a received bank statement should be equal to the number of reconciliation records in BREC.
Documents available for reconciliation: When a bank account is being reconciled, BREC does a database search and locates all the posted documents in ITAS that are available for reconciliation. Available documents must fulfill the following requirements: Not form part of a previous reconciliation, have a document/value date prior to the date of the statement (and the reconciliation), be posted to the bank account being reconciled and the correct currency being reconciled.
Other validations and rules:
Bank account/ currency pair: There can only be one reconciliation record per pair.
Statement date: Must be prior to the current date and later than the last reconciliation date.
Reconciliation: Only one complete reconciliation can be done per record, per day.
Editing reconciliation details: Editing of details displayed on the first window of BREC is not possible if a reconciliation record is only partially reconciled (i.e. it has been postponed). To change these details you must enter the Reconciliation window and complete the reconciliation.
Reversal: Reversal of Last reconciliation is not possible on a bank account/currency that has only been reconciled once (the opening reconciliation).
Manual entries: Statements may contain transactions that have not yet been posted in ITAS. In this case, to fully reconcile the bank account, apart from matching ITAS documents to items on the statement you can enter these extra items in the BREC form. These extra entries that do not have a match in ITAS are called manual entries and have a special treatment. Upon entering these items (transactions on the statement) you can mark them as reconciled, AND they are secured in a different ITAS table. These manual entries must be matched (at some time) with either an ITAS transaction or another manual entry. On a subsequent reconcile process of the same bank account/ currency, BREC shows an intermediate form that displays the outstanding manual entries that have not been matched. Each manual entry will be listed with any ITAS posted document (entered since the creation of the manual entry) that apart from fulfilling the normal availability requirements (see above) also has the same amount as the manual entry (if no documents are listed you can still enter the reconciliation window by pressing the OK button or go back to the first window by pressing the Cancel button). At this point the correct transaction can be matched with the manual entry. This matching causes the clearing of manual entries from the ITAS table and the list of documents that appear for the reconciled record will now contain the new recognised ITAS transaction as reconciled at the date of the manual entry reconciliation. If the manual entry is part of a current reconciliation (one that has been postponed) the matching will cause the inclusion of the ITAS transaction as reconciled for that reconciliation.
The manual entry display form has two buttons, Forward and Back, to scroll through manual entries and their possible ITAS matches when more than one of them has been entered for a particular reconciliation record. It is possible to remove manual items that have been created by mistake. The user must have the most secure ITAS privilege (i.e. zero) to be enabled to delete an entry.
Complete and postponed reconciliation: Reconciliation is complete when the Amount Remaining filed in the Current reconciliation frame of the Reconciliation window is zero (i.e. The amount reconciled equals the closing balance of the bank statement). At this point the Finish button is enabled and the reconciliation can be completed. If you wish to leave the reconciliation partially done you can postpone it. This will lead you to the opening window of BREC and allow you to re-enter the same reconciliation record at any time to finish the reconciliation.
Reversing a reconciliation: The reversal of the last reconciliation is possible by using mouse right click, Reverse Last reconciliation. The reversal causes the elimination of all matching with ITAS documents and reconciliation of manual entries. The information in the last two columns (when and who did the last reconciliation) of the first BREC window is also deleted
Navigation in the BREC Form
Scrolling through fields and grid cells: Scrolling through fields is done with the TAB key and through grid cells with the Arrow keys. Alternatively you can navigate through the grid and fields by clicking the mouse.
Cut, copy, pasting: Having the search field active (highlighted) you can cut, copy or paste the contents of the field by using mouse, right click, Cut, Copy, Paste.
Edit mode: In order to change any of the editable details of a reconciliation record you must enter the Edit mode, using mouse right click Edit or by clicking on the Edit icon on the toolbar.
Closing/exiting the form: At any moment you can close the form by using standard Windows closing procedures (mouse click on top left and right corners of the window or Alt F4). When not in the Edit mode and in the first window of BREC, you can also close the form by using mouse right click, Close.
Printing a reconciliation form: At any moment whilst not within the Edit mode you can print a form by using mouse right click, Print or clicking on the print icon in the toolbar.
Printing a reconciliation report: At any moment whilst not within the Edit mode and in the first window of BREC, you can print a report by using mouse right click, Print Reconciliation List.
Adding a row: To add a row, enter the Edit mode and position the focus on the empty row at the bottom of the grid and enter the information.
Inserting a row: To insert a row, enter the Edit mode and use mouse right click, Insert row or press ^n. Rows will be inserted above the row where the focus is positioned.
Deleting a row: To delete a row, enter the Edit mode and use mouse right click/ Delete row or press ^d.
Sorting: Sorting columns is possible, ascending and descending, by double clicking column headers.
Adjusting column width: The width of columns can be changed. The normal cursor will change to a double sided horizontal arrow when between columns and in the header region. Clicking and dragging the mouse when the cursor has this shape will allow the sideways movement of the column border.
Left column identifiers: All new records (created since last save of changes) are identified with an N in the left most column of the grid. Likewise all changes to existing records are identified with an A. Upon saving changes, amendments are marked as saved with an S. These identifiers will disappear on reentering the program.