When it comes to financial management, many entrepreneurs immediately focus on expense control. And although this is essential, does simply managing costs ensure the financial health of the business? There is another equally relevant aspect: ensuring that what was sold is effectively being collected.
Payment inconsistencies: a more common problem than it seems
Recently, a franchisee in the footwear sector reported an unexpected situation. While reviewing her operations, she noticed that not all completed sales 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 payment report for card transactions. Manually verifying the large volume of daily transactions was impractical, leading her to seek 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 turned out that some sales, though recorded in the store’s system, were not reflected in the reports from the card acquirers, meaning amounts that simply went unpaid.
After ruling out internal issues by carefully reviewing the store’s operations with the card machine receipts in hand, the franchisee found that the problem lay in operational failures of the card acquirer itself.
Cases like this are more common than you might think. To give you an idea, between 2022 and 2023, F360, through its card reconciliation functionality, helped clients recover R$159 million in funds that could have otherwise been lost.
Automation: the key to preventing financial losses
Besides identifying sales that went unpaid, reconciliation systems also detect improper charges in applied fees, which may differ from the amounts negotiated with card brands. This represents another source of significant losses for retailers.
In retail, where sales volume is high, manual reconciliation is nearly impossible. Technology, in this context, becomes a great ally, allowing discrepancies to be identified quickly and ensuring funds are not lost in the complexity of financial flows. Even seemingly minor inconsistencies—like 0.1% of sales—can result in significant losses over time. There are cases where retailers recovered thousands by correcting errors detected with software.
Although credit and debit cards are considered secure payment methods, retailers must pay attention to every step of the process. This includes not only verifying completed sales but also the applied fees. Franchisors, for example, often negotiate special conditions with card brands for their networks, but it’s crucial to check whether the agreed-upon amounts are being properly charged in daily operations.
Automating financial reconciliation is an indispensable strategy. Small daily errors, if ignored, can accumulate and cause a significant impact by 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, don’t let money slip away due to reconciliation failures. In retail, every penny counts, and ensuring all sales are properly collected is essential for business sustainability.
