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Vendors demo bank reconciliation software on clean sample data, so buyers cannot tell how the tool will cope with their own bank formats, narrations and ERP vouchers.
Assemble a fixed test pack of one month per bank account in native formats plus the full bank-ledger extract, and run the same pack through every shortlisted vendor.
Pack contents: statements in PDF, Excel, CSV or MT940 for each account, one month with reversals and returns, one co-operative or PSU bank PDF where held, and an unfiltered ERP voucher extract with voucher number, date, narration, reference and amount.
A like-for-like scorecard per vendor showing ingestion without manual edits, balance tie-out per file, and an unmatched list with reasons.
A bank reconciliation demo is only useful if it runs on your files. Before any vendor call, build a test pack: one month of statements for each bank account in the formats your banks actually issue, plus the matching bank-ledger extract from your ERP. Run the same pack through every shortlisted vendor and compare what each one produces.
For background on why formats matter, see scanned PDF vs machine-readable statements and the MT940 reconciliation guide.
Which statements go in the pack?
Pick one calendar month and collect every account for that month. Cover each bank and each format you receive:
- PDF statements from net banking, including at least one scanned or co-operative or PSU bank PDF if you hold such an account.
- Excel or CSV downloads, exactly as downloaded, without reformatting columns.
- MT940 files where your bank provides them through a corporate channel.
- A difficult month that includes a cheque return, a failed UPI payment reversed, bank charges with 18 percent GST and an interest credit.
Make sure the month includes each rail you see in practice: an RTGS credit (₹2 lakh and above), an IMPS credit (up to ₹5 lakh per transaction), NEFT credits on a Sunday or holiday (NEFT has run round the clock since 16 December 2019), and, if you issue cheques of ₹50,000 or more, one cheque covered by the Positive Pay confirmation the RBI introduced from 1 January 2021.
Choose a month that ends on a weekday with heavy collections. Month-end volume is where weak tools slow down.
What goes in the ERP extract?
Export the bank-ledger vouchers for the same month and the same accounts, with five fields at minimum: voucher number, voucher date, narration, cheque number or UTR reference, and amount. Do not remove contra entries, journals or entries you know are wrong. Those are the source of real exceptions, and a tool that only works on a cleaned ledger will disappoint you in the first live close.
Add the last signed reconciliation for each account, so the vendor can see your opening reconciling items.
What must the demo show for each pack item?
| Pack item | Why it is there | What the demo must show | Pass or fail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native PDF per bank | Layouts differ by bank | Ingested with no manual edits or re-keying | Fail if you must convert to Excel first |
| Scanned or co-operative bank PDF | Hardest format | Lines extracted with dates and amounts intact | Fail if amounts are misread or lines dropped |
| Excel or CSV download | Column order varies | Columns mapped once and reused | Fail if mapping is redone each month |
| MT940 file | Structured corporate feed | Opening and closing balance tags read correctly | Fail if balances do not tie |
| Unfiltered ERP extract | Real exceptions | Unmatched list with a reason for each item | Fail if items are force-matched |
| Last signed reconciliation | Brought-forward items | Opening items carried with original dates | Fail if ageing restarts at zero |
How do you check the tie-out before matching starts?
Every file should balance on its own before a single match is made. In an illustrative pack of three banks, four accounts and 1,860 statement lines, one current account might show an opening balance of ₹12,40,500, credits of ₹38,62,000 and debits of ₹36,15,250. The tool should compute ₹12,40,500 plus ₹38,62,000 minus ₹36,15,250 and arrive at the printed closing balance of ₹14,87,250. Ask it to show the same tie-out and row count for the other three files. If any file does not tie, the tool should stop and flag it, not start matching. The completeness checks guide covers what to break on purpose.
What questions should you ask during the demo?
- How many of my lines were matched, how many left open, and why is each open one open?
- Which reference did you use for each match: cheque number, UTR, UPI reference or amount and date?
- What did you change in my files before loading them? The right answer is nothing.
- How would next month’s files be loaded, and by whom?
- Can I export the unmatched list and the match log for my auditor?
Keep narration and cheque testing short here and use the dedicated scripts: narration test cases and cheque handling test cases. The days 1 to 5 runbook shows how the pack maps to your normal close.
How Terra Insight fits
TransactIG delivers bank-to-books reconciliation with an exception queue and audit-ready exports, configured through industry presets. Bring your test pack and we will run a representative-sample fit benchmark on it, so you can compare the result with every other vendor on the same files. See the bank reconciliation software page or the comparisons index.