Reconciliation

A financial statement is only worth building on if you can trust that it is complete. Reconciliation is how CounselPro earns that trust. For every account, in every billing cycle, it checks the one equation a real statement has to satisfy: the beginning balance, plus everything that moved that cycle, equals the ending balance the bank printed. When that holds, the cycle is sound. When it does not, CounselPro flags it so you can settle it against the source.

That quiet check does a lot of work in a case. An off cycle is a lead. Most of the time it means something mechanical: a transaction was read twice, one is missing, a page never made it into the upload, or a balance was mis-keyed on the way in. You fix those against the statement and move on. But the cycles that survive that review are the ones worth your attention. A balance that does not match its own activity, an account that will not add up, money you cannot place, that is the thread you pull in discovery or a deposition.

It also protects your own work. Before you put a number in a filing or hand it to a judge, reconciliation tells you the data underneath it holds together. Opposing counsel cannot unravel your analysis by finding the one transaction you missed, because you already found it. Run it first, clear the flags, and everything downstream stands on ground you have checked.

Where do I find reconciliation?

Open your project, click the Insights tab, then Reconciliation. The heading reads "Reconciliation," and under it: "Whether each statement's printed balances tie out to its transactions, cycle by cycle." There is nothing to generate first. It reads from the statements already in the project.

What do the reconciliation verdicts mean?

Each statement, and each cycle inside it, carries one of four verdicts:

• Reconciled (green). The beginning balance, the transactions, and the ending balance all agree. Nothing to do.

• Needs review (amber). The numbers do not tie out. The cycle is off by some amount, and it is waiting for you to review and fix it.

• Unverifiable (slate). The statement printed no beginning or ending balance to check against, so there is nothing to reconcile.

• Not checked (gray). An older statement that was processed before reconciliation ran. Reprocess it to get a verdict.

At the top, a tally sums it up: how many statements reconciled, how many cycles need review, and how many are unverifiable. Statements that need a human float to the top of the list, so the work finds you instead of the other way around.

How do I read a cycle?

Expand a statement to see its billing cycles. Each cycle shows a per-account table with columns for Account, Begin, Net, End, and Reconcile. That last column tells you the result per account:

• Balanced means that account ties out for the cycle.

• off $X means the account is off by that amount, and the row is highlighted so you can spot it.

• Unverifiable means there was no printed balance to check.

When a cycle needs review, you will see how far off it is ("off by $240.00") and a Review & fix button.

What does it mean when a cycle doesn't balance?

Start with the ordinary explanations, because most off cycles are one of them: a charge or deposit got read twice, a row is missing, a page didn't make it into the upload, or a balance was mis-keyed. You open the cycle, compare it against the statement PDF, and correct it. As you do, the gap updates until the cycle ties out. That is covered step by step in how to review and fix a cycle.

The cycles that stay off after you have ruled all of that out are the ones that matter. A printed balance that does not match the account's own activity raises a real question: where did that money come from, or where did it go, and why did the statement not account for it. Those are worth a note for discovery.

The colors here match the coverage grid, so an amber cycle is the same "needs review" you see on that month's cell. Reconciliation catches money that does not add up; coverage catches whole months that are missing. Between them you can say whether a set of records is both present and internally consistent.

How do I use reconciliation to check a client's records?

Treat it as the first pass over any project before you draw conclusions from the numbers:

• Let it run and read the tally. It reconciles from the statements already in the project, so the summary at the top tells you at a glance how much of the record is solid and how much needs a human.

• Work the flagged cycles top to bottom. They are already sorted to the top. Open each one, compare it to the source, and fix the mechanical errors so the gap closes.

• Flag what will not tie out. When a cycle is right and still off, that is your lead. Note the account, the cycle, and the amount, and carry it into your questions for the other side.

• Then build on it. Once the flags are cleared, the insights, Daystrom, and any report you generate all rest on data you have already verified.