Account Reconciliation Agent (production ready preview)

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

The Account Reconciliation Agent represents a transformative step toward a continuous financial close and offers significant benefits to Microsoft's customers. With it, the process shifts away from a reactive approach that relies on Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports for reconciliation. In place of that approach, the agent introduces a proactive experience. The innovative Account reconciliation workspace raises exceptions and uses an intelligent agent to evaluate those exceptions and provide recommended actions.

Here are some of the benefits:

• Enhanced efficiency – Customers can maintain a reconciled state more consistently. Therefore, less time and effort are required for manual reconciliation.
• Proactive management – The intelligent agent proactively identifies and suggests mitigations for exceptions. In this way, it helps minimize the risk of errors and ensure financial accuracy.
• Improved transparency – Every exception is logged to capture the history of actions that users, automation, or agents take. As a result, transparency and accountability are enhanced.
• Regular reconciliation – The ability to reconcile on a more regular basis ensures that customer financial records are always up to date. As a result, decision-making and financial planning improve.

Set up the Account Reconciliation Agent

To set up the Account Reconciliation Agent, follow these steps:

1. In the Feature management workspace, enable the (Preview) Account reconciliation agent feature.

2. Go to Modules > Agents.

3. On the Agents page, find the Account reconciliation template, and enable the agent.

4. Specify the start date for the reconciliation process.

5. Add the modules that participate in the reconciliation process, and arrange them in order of priority.

6. Specify the exception limits to apply during processing (daily or monthly).

7. Set up alert settings (optional). You can configure notifications for the following conditions:

• Enable balance alert: If you select this checkbox and specify a threshold value, the system triggers a notification when the balance falls below the defined value.
• Enable daily/monthly limit alert: Based on the selected exception limit type (Daily or Monthly), the system shows the corresponding alert option. If you enable this alert, the system triggers a notification when usage reaches defined thresholds (50%, 75%, or 90%) of the selected limit.
• Notify if a run is skipped due to limit: The system triggers a notification when the agent skips processing due to reaching a configured limit.

1. Review and confirm the agent settings. The agent doesn't run until you confirm the settings.

2. Activate the agent. After activation, you can edit the agent settings as needed.

View agent recommendations for mitigating exceptions

The Account Reconciliation Agent evaluates exceptions and provides a recommended action for each one. You can view the agent recommendations in the Account reconciliation workspace.

For example, an exception of the Voucher amount mismatch type is raised for a transaction. When the Account Reconciliation Agent evaluates the exception, it recommends the following action: Create journal entry. You can either accept that recommendation or select from other available actions:

• Reverse
• Link transactions
• Accept without change

The Account Reconciliation Agent processes the following exception types:

• Voucher amount mismatch
• Pending accounting transferred to general ledger

View agent activity in the Activity pane

To view agent activity, select Addressed exceptions. The Activity pane has a timeline that shows the following information. (The most recent activity appears at the top of the timeline.)

• Agent activity appears as Fix suggested by agent.
• For each addressed exception, there's a Reconciled activity. The activity includes an option that you can use to undo the action that reconciled the transaction. The exception then returns to an unmitigated state.

View agent activity from the Account reconciliation agent card in the Account reconciliation workspace

The Account reconciliation agent card in the Account reconciliation workspace shows the number of agent suggestions during the selected period. Select the arrow on the card to view agent activity for the Account Reconciliation Agent.