Payments glossary
Reconciliation
Reconciliation is the process of matching payment records against money actually received - checking every transaction, fee, refund and chargeback in a settlement against the provider's reports and the bank statement so the books balance to the cent.
Matching what happened to what arrived
Reconciliation answers a deceptively simple question: does the money in the bank match the sales in the system? For payments this means matching three records - the merchant's own transaction data, the provider's settlement report, and the bank statement - item by item. A settlement credit of R84,317.25 has to decompose into identifiable transactions, minus identifiable fees, refunds and chargebacks, with nothing left orphaned in any of the three ledgers.
Why it gets hard
Three forces work against clean books. Timing: transactions captured on one day settle across different days, so daily sales never equal daily settlements. Netting: most providers settle net, folding fees, refunds and chargebacks into a single credit that must be unpicked. Method sprawl: cards, instant EFT and vouchers settle on different schedules from different counterparties, each with its own cut-offs and file formats. Without transaction-level reporting keyed to stable references, month-end becomes forensic work.
What good reconciliation support looks like
The burden is set by the provider's reporting. The essentials: itemised settlement files in which every bank credit traces to a list of transactions with fees broken out; a unique reference that stays constant from checkout through settlement; and webhooks that confirm each state change as it happens rather than leaving systems to poll and guess. LekkaPay's reporting is built to this standard - every settlement itemised to the transaction, with references consistent end to end.
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