Cointab Beverage Reconciliation Case Study

A beverage brand with growing transaction volumes needed a better way to reconcile sales, payments, settlements, and related reports across multiple systems. Manual spreadsheet checks were slowing down the finance team, making exception review harder, and increasing the risk of missed differences during close.

Cointab replaced that manual process with a reusable reconciliation workflow. The team could upload source files, map fields once, run reconciliation, review exceptions clearly, and download audit-ready reports for follow-up and review.

Business context

As the business expanded, its finance team had to compare data from several sources, including internal sales records, payment data, and external settlement files. Each period brought the same recurring work:

• matching large transaction files
• checking for missing or duplicate records
• reviewing amount differences
• handling late or incomplete files
• preparing reports for finance review and audit support

The work was repeatable, but the process was not. It relied heavily on Excel formulas, manual comparisons, and repeated file handling.

Reconciliation challenges

The main issues were typical of high-volume finance operations:

• Manual effort across multiple files: The team had to compare reports from different systems by hand.
• Slow exception review: Unmatched and partially matched transactions took time to isolate and investigate.
• Spreadsheet dependency: Reconciliation logic lived in formulas and ad hoc checks, which made the process harder to maintain.
• Inconsistent reporting: Different team members could prepare supporting files differently.
• Delayed close readiness: Reconciliation work stretched into the close cycle instead of supporting it.
• Late or missing reports: External partner files did not always arrive together, which delayed review.

How Cointab structured the workflow

Cointab turned the process into a clear Side A and Side B reconciliation setup.

Side A and Side B setup

• Side A contained the brand’s internal records, such as sales or order data.
• Side B contained external records, such as payment gateway, settlement, or bank-related files.

The finance team mapped the required fields once, including:

• date
• amount
• reference or identifier columns
• any additional supporting fields needed for matching

Supporting data and derived columns

Where needed, the team could upload supporting files for lookup or enrichment. This helped with tasks such as:

• adding missing order details
• merging related reports before reconciliation
• normalizing identifiers
• calculating derived amounts

Cointab also supports derived columns, which makes it easier to prepare data without building complex spreadsheet formulas manually.

Reconciliation and review

Once the files were ready, the team ran reconciliation and reviewed the results in a structured report. The system separated records into clear groups:

• fully matched
• partially matched
• unmatched
• skipped

That made it easier for the finance team to focus on exceptions instead of reviewing every row manually.

What improved in practice

The beverage brand’s reconciliation process became more manageable and more consistent.

Faster review cycles

Instead of rebuilding the same checks each period, the team reused the reconciliation setup and focused on the current data. That reduced repetitive work and made recurring reconciliation easier to run.

Clearer exception handling

Matched, partially matched, unmatched, and skipped records were visible in one report. Finance users could investigate discrepancies without losing context.

Better control over open items

For transactions that could not be matched automatically, the team could review open items, analyze the reason for the difference, and use manual match where appropriate.

Audit-ready reporting

The team could download reconciliation reports for internal review, audit support, and follow-up with operations or external partners.

More reliable recurring operations

Once the workflow was configured, the same setup could be reused for future periods instead of starting from scratch each time.

Why this matters for beverage and FMCG teams

Beverage businesses often deal with high-volume, recurring transaction data across sales, payments, settlements, and operational reports. That makes them a strong fit for structured reconciliation automation.

Cointab is useful when finance teams need to:

• reconcile sales against payment or settlement files
• compare internal records with external partner reports
• review missing, delayed, or partial settlements
• handle period-end reconciliation without rebuilding Excel workbooks
• keep an audit trail of what matched and what did not

Reconciliation as a reusable finance workflow

The biggest shift was not just automation. It was repeatability.

Instead of treating reconciliation as a one-off monthly task, the team could keep a configured workflow ready for future periods. That approach supports more consistent finance operations and reduces the risk of manual error caused by repeated spreadsheet work.

Cointab also supports scheduled reconciliation and automated data flow through email, SFTP, or API, which makes recurring workflows easier to manage over time.

What the finance team could see

The reconciliation report gave the team a structured view of the data.

• Fully matched transactions showed records that aligned across both sides.
• Partially matched transactions highlighted records that were related but not fully aligned on amount.
• Unmatched transactions surfaced items present on one side but missing on the other.
• Skipped transactions showed rows that were excluded because of file or data issues.

This made review faster and easier to explain to stakeholders.

Summary

For this beverage brand, the move from manual spreadsheet reconciliation to Cointab created a more structured finance workflow. The team gained clearer exception tracking, reusable setup, and audit-friendly reports while reducing dependence on repeated manual comparisons.

That combination is especially valuable for businesses that reconcile sales, payments, settlements, and partner reports on a recurring basis.