Power Automate Helps an Accounting Firm Reconcile Transactions Across Six Banks

A case on how intelligent automation reduced verification time, eliminated duplication, and streamlined reconciliation across six banks, ensuring client trust. 

The Client

The client is a Bangalore-based accounting firm that supports businesses with day-to-day finance and tax needs. They handle everything from GST and income tax filings to audits and payroll services. The team works closely with startups, SMEs, and individual entrepreneurs to keep their accounts compliant and up to date as per the Indian regulatory standards. They aim to be a long-term finance partner, not just a service provider, for growing firms across industries. 

Challenges Faced by the Client

A bank reconciliation ensures that a company’s cash account balances match bank statements, verifying transactional accuracy. Associates perform reconciliations to identify discrepancies like unrecorded deposits or unauthorized payments. This process provides audit evidence supporting the accuracy of financial statements, particularly in cash transaction reporting and identifying potential errors or fraud. However, the client’s reconciliation efforts were hindered by the following issues:  

• Manual Data Collection and Entry: Retrieving transactional data from emails, like NIC Challan, was slow and error-prone. Associates had to manually extract and save files in OneDrive, often sifting through 25+ attachments per email, adding to their workload and delaying verification.

• Data Extraction and Preparation: Extracting relevant information from different formats, such as Excel files or zip attachments (e.g., Card & UPI data received as zip file attachments), required tedious manual intervention. 

• Data Discrepancies & Mismatch Resolution: Frequent mismatches arose between bank and client records; for example, the Bank Challan report displayed transactions from various banks, but discrepancies occurred when offline bank records did not align with online transactional data from payment gateways.

• Delayed & Inefficient Report Generation: Since reconciliation reports were manually compiled, associates had to verify large data volumes before structuring them into reports, delaying financial analysis and corrective actions. 

• Tracking Negative Adjustments in Transactions: No direct updates were provided for bank details. Instead, incorrect transactions were adjusted using negative values, which made tracking and rectifying errors difficult without a structured reconciliation process. 

• Storage & Access Issues: Transactional data was scattered across multiple spreadsheets, making retrieval difficult for audits and compliance checks. Additionally, local storage did not always maintain the same structure as OneDrive, leading to processing inconsistencies. 

Solutions

The team at UBTI, with its intelligent automation expertise, collectively addressed the client’s challenges using Microsoft Power Automate as follows: 

• Automated Email Processing & Data Extraction: With Microsoft Power Automate, transactional data (i.e., Banking, Card, and UPI payments) from daily emails are instantly extracted, sorted, and stored. When a zip file attachment arrives, the system automatically processes it, ensuring every transaction is accurately captured within seconds. 

• Efficient Data Extraction through Bulk Insertion: We implemented bulk data insertion instead of manual entry, transferring bank data from Excel files into MySQL tables. This approach ensures accuracy and maintains historical records for audit trails, preventing duplicate entries and lost data. 

• Automated Multi-Bank Reconciliation Workflow: Our Power BI-driven reconciliation system replicates the human verification process but at a much faster pace. The system systematically compares bank records with client data, flagging discrepancies like missing PayU transactions or incorrect net banking settlements. 

• Daily Power BI Reports for Near Real-Time Visibility: Associates now receive daily Power BI updates instead of relying on static reports. This allows them to monitor total bank collections, detect unresolved mismatches, and view transaction trends without waiting for month-end reports. 

• Proactive Error Detection & Adjustment Tracking: The system intelligently highlights negative value adjustments and inconsistencies in net amounts. If an incorrect transaction entry is flagged, it is instantly categorized for review, ensuring resolution before finalizing financial reports. 

• Standardized Folder Structure: Inconsistent file management caused reconciliation errors, so we ensured local storage mirrored OneDrive. Card & UPI reports are automatically sorted into predefined folders, maintaining order and preventing discrepancies. 

Solutions Benefits

• Fewer Errors, Stronger Audit Trust: Automated reconciliation drastically reduced manual errors and duplication, leading to more accurate reports and improved the client’s trust during audits and financial reviews. 

• Faster Verification, Quicker Closures: What earlier took hours to verify is now completed within minutes, enabling teams to close books faster and focus on value-adding tasks.

• Instant Access to Past Records: With centralized storage, version control, and automated data logging, the client can now retrieve past transactions instantly, ensuring readiness for surprise audits or compliance checks.

• Critical Issues Resolved First: Discrepancies are now categorized and prioritized automatically, helping finance teams resolve the most critical issues before they impact month-end closures or client relationships.

• Scalable Across Six Banks: Designed to handle reconciliation across six banks, our solution processes 3GB of data per year (approx.), ensuring long-term scalability as transaction volumes grow.

Conclusion

About Us

UB Technology Innovations, Inc. (UBTI) is a leading global technology solution provider with over 3 decades of experience across all industries, specializing in Capital Markets, Logistics, and Healthcare. We are the preferred Microsoft Solutions Partner backed by a world-class team of Microsoft Certified experts with rich experience in Azure Cloud Platform and Data Analytics.

One of the Top 10 winners of the
Microsoft’s Azure AI & ML Workathon