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BankLink brings statement data accounting to UK

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1st Nov 2011
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A New Zealand-based specialist in building interfaces to banking data is opening its doors to UK accounting practices that want to automate bookkeeping duties for their business clients.

“We link to bank data, so we called the company BankLink,” said managing director John Dunkerley.

BankLink makes it possible to automate bookkeeping by feeding statement data directly into accounting ledgers. The company has been automating accounting from clients’ bank statement data in its home market and Australia for 25 years, where nine out of 10 accountancy practices work this way, Dunkerley explained. “But I don’t know of any practice that uses it for all its clients.”

While preparing the ground for the company’s UK launch, Dunkerley took a close interest in the discussions about bank statement accounting that have taken place in recent years on AccountingWEB.co.uk. As might be expected, he is “absolutely” certain that bookkeeping be carried out using statement data to input transactions, but not necessarily for all businesses.

“It doesn’t have to be limited just to cash-based businesses,” Dunkerley said. “But if you heavily transact through sales and purchase ledgers, some of the benefits will be lost.”

Bankink is targeting accounting practices that want to serve clients “who don’t have skills or inclination to do the accounts themselves”, he added.

“We sell them a system to serve clients who would otherwise send them a shoebox. We’re happy to occupy that space. BankLink gives accountants a tool to provide that service at a low production cost.”

The BankLink Practice application makes a direct connection to the source bank account data and downloads it to a server that matches it to clients and automatically codes up transactions for the accounts software. Typically 80-90% of the transactions can be coded automatically within 30 secs, Dunkerley said.

The software includes a set of standard reports that produce P&Ls, balance sheets, cash flow statements and VAT returns for clients. It can also interface to final accounts software from leading suppliers such as CCH, IRIS and Digita, he added.

The software plugs straight into the banking records directly rather than going through a third party like services such as Yodlee. BankLink and its accountant customers need to convince clients to give them a signed authority from clients to do this. The supplier works closely with firms on this and helps them select, educate and set up clients who want to use the service.

“How practices pitch it depends on clients and their needs. Usually they apply BankLink to the problem clients who are the most common source of incomplete information. They usually emphasise that fees will stay the same,” Dunkerley said.

Pricing is calcuated on a monthly usage fee based on the number of linked bank accounts and the volume of transactions handled. “How much it costs a practice depends on how much they use,” he said. “A small business with typical volume of transactions would cost around £10 a month.”

Entering the UK market has been a long-term project for BankLink and Dunkerley is keen to correct misconceptions that the company is planning to grab market share from existing accounting software suppliers. Sage, Inuit, IRIS and their like provide what he calls “DIY accounting”.

“We’re not a DIY accounting system,” he emphasised, adding that BankLink is just as able to feed transactions into bookkeeping software as it can trial balances into accounts production systems.

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Replies (7)

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Torben Halvorses owner of PaperLess Document Management for Sage
By torbenhalvorsen
02nd Nov 2011 07:53

BankLink were next door to PaperLess at the ICAEW Annual Practice Conference and we were able to have a good chat with them.

It certainly seemed to us that there was plenty of interest from Accountants in the services that BankLink provide and with security and control a prime concern they seem to have this well covered.

The ICAEW Annual Practice Conference was well attended and was an excellent forum for discussions on the modern efficient practice.

Phil

-- Accounting the PaperLess way™

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By ringi
02nd Nov 2011 16:50

Some questions

I have 3 questions.

What banks does work with?Do I have to give BankLink the on-line password for my bank account?Can the data be fed into my own bookkeeping system without going var an accountant?

 

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Replying to BabsHarris:
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By kat.bond
03rd Nov 2011 09:30

In response to some questions

Hi there,

 

In response to your questions:

At present we provide data from HSBC, RBS and NatWest with other UK banks due to join the service in coming months.BankLink is entirely different from internet banking and does not require any log in credentials or passwords.  The data is provided by the banks under an authority signed by the account holder(s) and is only provided to the nominated accountant/advisor.BankLink is a service for accountants, who use a suite of software provided by BankLink to collect and code the data.  This data can then be imported into a variety of other software systems.

For any further information please do contact BankLink on 0800 5003084 or [email protected]

 

Thanks

Kat

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By ashfieldacc
04th Nov 2011 16:36

Banklink Service

We were one of the first accountancy practices in the country to trial the Banklink service as a way of automating book-keeping entry and nominal coding. Whilst the banklink accounts software will not suit all businesses as it is based on being more of an analysed cashbook type of product in the fullness of time I expect to see banklink expand the service so it can be used to automate the nominal coding of banking entries to then provide a data file for importation of the coded bank entries into the client's exisitng software package. Our experience over the past 18 months is that the Banklink service is reliable and delivers what it promises. There are other solutions that will do something similar but the way Banklink receive and deliver client data is more secure than some of the other offerings that are out there and for us that is an important factor.

We are very excited to be involved with Banklink and will happily discuss with any business owner looking to reduce accountancy fees and/or the time they spend on accounts data entry how the service might work for their business.

Mark Hill - www.ashfield-accountancy.co.uk

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By AdShawBPR
04th Nov 2011 17:26

Love it but mustn't tell too many people...

I've used Banklink for a few months now and it does everything it says on the tin, and more.  At the press of a button, all the bank transactions for every client on the system are downloaded onto my PC and into the Banklink software.  I don't have to hassle and keep chasing my clients for copies of their statements anymore so VAT returns can be started straight after the quarter end without delay. It turned one particular client - a very disorganised optician - from a loss making one into a profitable one overnight.  It really does take minutes to code up pages of bank statements which would have taken a day to do before.

There's no issue with bank security; I do not have access to my client's online bank account, I don't have their username or password, and I cannot manipulate the actual account in any way - I wouldn't want that at all.  There are bank approved forms to complete authorising the bank to send across the data only, all within the bank's terms and conditions.  This is not like Yodlee, for example, where usernames, passwords etc are passed across to third parties without bank approval or knowledge.

What is truly amazing is that the banks over here have been so slow in providing the ability to do these things.  HSBC seem to be way ahead of the game and it's great RBS/NatWest have got there too.  Until the other banks wake up, Banklink isn't the complete solution, but it's one reason I guide my clients towards HSBC or RBS when starting up.  I can offer more competetive pricing to clients who are with those banks knowing I can do the job so much more efficiently.  I hope the others wake up and smell the coffee very soon!  Hell, I'm a taxpayer so I own Lloyds - I might have to have a word!

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By Karen Bennett
02nd Apr 2013 09:48

Alternative Bank Reconciliation Software

 

 

AutoRec is an alternative solution that you might want to look at. 

Using AutoRec you can scan your client’s bank statements on your standard office scanner straight into a bank reconciliation spreadsheet. Our bank reconciliation accounting software will verify the accuracy of the scanned data. AutoRec will read each page image automatically detecting what bank statement type it is. We can also recognise each cheque number presented on the bank statement additionally identifying and presenting missing cheque numbers.

It is for Accounting Practices that are dealing with Shoebox / Paper based clients. This solution does remove data entry dependencies providing savings in terms of time, costs and accuracy. AutoRec supports all the major banks in Ireland and the UK. You can import the anaylsis straight into your Accounts Production software to name a few Clearbooks, CSV, Digita, IRIS, sage, Vitztopia, VT and Xero.

We do live demonstrations if you wanted to have a look at how the software works. http://ocrex.com/autorec-demo or have a look at what our clients say http://ocrex.com/case-studies/j-s-williamson

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By gedhull
11th Apr 2013 16:33

Autorec and banklink

We use both Banklink and Autorec and really rate both products.

Autorec does a great job on bank accounts not currently supported by Banklink and also in generating historic data to import into Banklink once that service has started.

Banklink does go alot further in terms of time saving and functionality. The transactions appear automatically in the software saving scanning and checking time and the memorisation feature needs to be seen to be believed. It is not unusual for us the 70% of transactions automatically coded without any user intervention at all.

In my view this really isn't a question of either/or......I'd strongly recommend both!

 

Ged Hull

P A Hull & Co

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