Transaction Reconciliation

Transaction Reconciliation on the Automated Back Office platform reconciles data received from Thredd (your issuer-processor) and the Card Scheme (Visa or Mastercard) to ensure accuracy and completeness between records. This ensures that the transactions processed through your programme accurately reflect the financial activities of your cardholders and the records maintained by the Card Scheme.

This process is crucial for maintaining the integrity of financial records and ensuring customer trust.

Steps in Reconciliation

Figure 9: Steps in Transaction Reconciliation

  1. Data Collection: Thredd uploads your transactional data to the patform:

    • Global Transaction Reporting logs and card scheme clearing files — used for Activity Reconciliation and Transaction Matching.

    • Thredd and scheme files (VISA VSS and Mastercard T140s) for the Automated Back Office Reconciliation service.

    2. For more information, see Uploading your Data.

  2. Reconciliation: Transactions are processed by the system. A reconciliation of Thredd and Card Scheme data is performed to ensure the accuracy and completeness of records. This includes checking transaction amounts, dates, and transaction details.

  3. Discrepancy Identification: Any discrepancies identified during the reconciliation are flagged in the Reconciliation service for investigation. Common issues include duplicate transactions, incorrect amounts, or timing differences between when a transaction is processed and when it appears on settlement reports. See Using Transaction Reconciliation and Transaction Matching.

  4. View Transaction Lifecyle: You can view the transaction authorisation and settlement details that have been matched.

    You must make any transaction adjustments outside of the Automated Back Office using the Thredd Portal application or using the Thredd API, for example, by issuing refunds or correcting transaction amounts.

How Often Does Reconciliation Run?

Transaction reconciliation (activity reconciliation and transaction matching) is run multiple times per day depending on your reporting setup. For reconciliation, the platform processes Thredd clearing and Non-clearing files and Scheme T140 and VSS files.

Reconciliation Processing Frequency

Automated Back Office receives new data every 20 minutes. In the case of file uploads, if the last refresh happened at 1:00, the portal finds any new files that are made available at 1:20.

Types of Reconciliation

The platform provides two types of reconciliation. These include:

  • Activity Reconciliation — examines the Processed vs Settlement activity on any given day

  • Transaction Matching — compares all the transactions within an Authorization file (Non-Clearing) with all the transactions in a Settlement file (Clearing).

  • Custom Reconciliation — compares any data within the uploaded files and perform any form of analysis you require.

The following image shows these two types of reconciliation in relation to the transaction data flow.

Figure 10: Activity Reconciliation and Transaction Matching in the Transaction Data Flow

Activity Reconciliation

Activity Reconciliation looks at the Processed vs Settlement activity on any given day. It uses the card network daily files such as T140 (Mastercard) and VSS (Visa) and compares the total Settlement amount reported with the totals from daily processing files (Clearing files). It also takes into consideration other items such as chargeback fees and network fees contained in the files. If the figures on both sets of files match, that day is considered Reconciled. If not, it is Unreconciled and the gap amount is shown.

Figure 11: Activity Reconciliation

For more information on how to use Activity reconciliation, see Viewing Activity Reconciliation Status.

You can view the list of transactions for that day, and their matching status. You can also view the daily Card Scheme T140 or VSS files at this level. See Viewing Activity Reconciliation Records.

Transaction Matching

Transaction Matching compares all the transactions within an Authorisation file (Non-Clearing) with all the transactions in a Settlement file (Clearing). The matching processes considers a set of variables between the Auth and Settlement to confirm a Match. If there is no match, it will be listed under Unmatched.

The set of Matched and Unmatched transactions are available under each day of Activity Reconciliation to provide easy access to the list and to deliver a summary. It can be common for a day to be Reconciled but still have Unmatched transactions. For example, a T140 and Clearing file can have a forced posted transaction without a corresponding authorisation. Therefore, no match will be found between the Authorisation and Settlement files.

Figure 12: Transaction Matching

For more information on how to use transaction matching, see Transaction Matching.

Custom Reconciliation

Custom reconciliation lets you check for matches and discrepancies in any parts of your data. For example, you might perform matching on foreign exchange amounts to assess your card program's cross border performance. Automated Back Office helps you in examining and analysing the data for custom reconciliation tasks, which may be complex. The dashboard interface includes a Collections area that allows you to check all the data you need from the uploaded files in a tabular view for your custom reconciliation. You can also perform further analysis on these data through a Reflow document. This includes:

  • Viewing the contents of your files in a Collection in a tabular view.

  • Exporting the files in your Collection to XML and JSON format.

  • Combining Collections in to a single document for a unified view.

  • Labelling the document that you created to help in navigation and analysis, for example, adding heading text.

  • Analysing the data at an in-depth level through merging Collections, and performing calculations and matches on the data.

For more information, see Custom Reconciliation: Viewing Uploaded File Data.

You are not required to check through your files in the Collections before performing analysis in the Reflow document. A Reflow document can accept the Collections file without it in the Flow format.