When it comes to financial management, many entrepreneurs immediately focus on expense control. And although this is essential, does just managing costs ensure the financial health of the business? There is another equally relevant aspect: ensuring that what was sold is actually being received.
Inconsistencies in payments: a more common problem than it seems
Recently, a footwear sector franchisee reported an unexpected situation. While reviewing its operations, it noticed that not all sales made were being deposited into the company’s account. But how was this possible? Although the transactions were recorded in the point of sale system, the amounts did not appear in the card payment report. Checking the large volume of daily transactions manually was impractical, leading to the search for a technological solution.
The answer came with the implementation of a card reconciliation software, which automatically identified recurring discrepancies between what was sold and what actually entered the bank account. It was found that some sales, although recorded in the store’s system, did not appear in the acquirers’ reports, meaning values that simply went unpaid.
After ruling out internal problems by meticulously reviewing the store’s operations with the card machine receipts in hand, the franchisee found that the problem lay in operational failures of the acquirer itself.
Cases like these are more common than one might think. For example, between 2022 and 2023, F360, through its card reconciliation functionality, helped clients recover R$159 million in values that could have otherwise been lost.
Automation: the key to avoiding financial losses
In addition to identifying unpaid sales, reconciliation systems also detect improper charges in the applied fees, which may diverge from the values negotiated with the card networks. This represents another source of significant losses for retailers.
In retail, where sales volume is high, manual reconciliation is almost impossible. Technology, in this context, becomes a great ally, allowing discrepancies to be quickly identified and preventing values from getting lost in the complexity of the financial flow. Even seemingly small inconsistencies, such as 0.1% of sales, can result in significant losses over time. There are cases of retailers recovering thousands of reais by fixing issues detected through the use of software.
Although credit and debit cards are considered secure means of payment, the retailer needs to pay attention to all stages of the process. This includes not only verifying the sales made but also the fees applied. Franchisors, for example, often negotiate special conditions with the networks for their chains, but it is crucial to verify if the agreed upon values are being correctly charged on a day-to-day basis.
Automating financial reconciliation is an essential strategy. Small daily errors, if overlooked, can accumulate and have a significant impact at year-end. Imagine a miscalculated fee applied to each installment of a sale on credit: without a tool to identify these discrepancies, the retailer would hardly notice the problem, but the impact on revenue would be real.
Therefore, do not let money slip through reconciliation failures. In retail, every penny makes a difference, and ensuring that all sales are properly received is essential for the sustainability of the business.
