Checks and Balances: Real-Time Reconciliation's IT Challenges

Accounting has never been the flashiest area of finance. But as margins are squeezed and firms across the buy side and sell side are facing enormous pressure to cut costs and introduce savings wherever possible, accounting has become critical to the effective operation of a business.

Why is it, then, that many companies reconcile their positions, cash and other areas on an intra-day basis through manual input into programs such as Microsoft Excel? Fat-finger incidents, incorrect sums and the