Definition
Reconciliation is the process of checking the platform’s own data against external bills. It includes operator reconciliation (card purchase fees and data fees checked against the operator’s bill) and payment reconciliation (checked against WeChat and Alipay reconciliation files). Differences can be marked and tracked until they close. After reconciliation passes, it is the basis for payment and audit.
Types of Reconciliation
- Operator reconciliation: The platform checks card purchase fees, data charges, overage fees, and similar items against the operator bill, line by line or in total, so the amount payable is accurate. See operator reconciliation for the detail.
- Payment reconciliation: Order payment records are checked against WeChat and Alipay reconciliation files (downloaded on T+1). The amount actually received must match the channel, and missing orders, duplicates, refunds, and other exceptions are found.
- Internal reconciliation: A settlement statement is checked against orders and sales attribution, so the settlement and profit sharing calculation is correct.
Reconciliation Process
Usually executed daily or according to the settlement cycle : obtain external bills → match with platform data → mark discrepancies → analyze discrepancies (missed entries, duplicate entries, amount differences, etc.) → adjust or confirm → reconciliation completed. The reconciliation results serve as a basis for payments to operators, remittances to agents, and financial audits.
Discrepancy Handling and Closure
Discrepancies found in reconciliation must be analyzed item by item: missed entries (transactions not recorded by the platform), duplicate entries (double accounting), amount differences (billing rules inconsistencies, operator mapping errors, etc.). Discrepancies can be marked with statuses (pending analysis, confirmed, adjusted) to form a closed-loop tracking. Payments and remittances can only be executed after reconciliation, ensuring fund security. Reconciliation records must be retained to meet financial audit and compliance requirements. Regular reconciliation can promptly detect billing anomalies, traffic billing configuration issues, ensuring accurate enterprise cost accounting.
Reconciliation and Business Association
Operator reconciliation is the cost check enterprises perform before paying operators ; payment reconciliation ensures actual receipts match WeChat Pay and Alipay ; internal reconciliation ensures settlement statements are calculated correctly against sales attribution and the profit-sharing ratio. Reconciliation is a core step in IoT Cloud Platform financial accounting and is closely linked to billing , traffic billing , and settlement profit-sharing data. The reconciliation cycle is typically daily or according to the settlement cycle ; subsequent payments and remittances can only be executed after reconciliation is completed.
Discrepancy Handling
Reconciliation differences need to be analyzed item by item to identify the causes: omissions, duplicate entries, or amount discrepancies. Differences can be marked with statuses (Pending Analysis, Confirmed, Adjusted) to enable closed-loop tracking. Payment and fund transfer can only be executed after reconciliation is completed, ensuring fund security. Reconciliation records must be retained to meet financial audit and compliance requirements. Regular reconciliation can promptly detect billing anomalies and traffic billing configuration issues. Reconciliation is a core capability of the IoT Cloud Platform in financial accounting.
Which keys align the three sets of bills
Reconciliation brings card business that has already happened in connectivity management together with external records of money or usage, line by line or in totals. There are at least three lines: card fees and traffic fees paid to the carrier, plan payments users made through a payment channel, and the share calculated for a channel from attribution. The three lines cannot be mixed into one difference table. The carrier line usually aligns on card identity plus billing period plus tariff code. The payment line aligns on the merchant order number and the channel transaction number. The internal sharing line aligns on the order number plus the attributed channel. If the key is wrong, the system adds usage from different cards, declares the total consistent, and the per-card difference is smoothed away.
The match rule has to state the tolerance in advance. If usage sync allows a timing gap of one statistics day, cross-day usage records can only be placed in the agreed billing period. The timing gap itself must not be booked as a loss. Amounts are compared in fen. Tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive figures cannot each be calculated on their own. Payment reconciliation also has to recognize refunds and fees on their own. If a refund is treated as a new collection, the amount received is inflated.
An open difference cannot be used as a basis for payment
Differences fall at least into missing entries, duplicate entries, amount mismatches, and status mismatches. A missing entry means the external bill has a line and the platform has no matching business. The callback may have been lost, or the usage file was never imported. A duplicate entry means the platform has two lines and the outside has one, which often comes from a provisioning retry that created two orders. An amount mismatch has to be traced to the unit price, the traffic unit, and the discount. A status mismatch means the platform has refunded while the channel is still successful, or the platform has already split the payment while the settlement statement still accrues the full amount.
Each difference keeps three states: to be checked, confirmed, and adjusted. An adjustment must keep the original value, the new value, and the reason. A period that is not closed cannot be the basis for paying a carrier or paying a channel. SimtoLink’s carrier bill check covers the usage and tariff line. The payment line still has to be closed with the channel’s reconciliation file. Only when both have passed do the card’s cost and revenue stand.
Which billing period a cross-day usage record belongs to
Usage files often arrive complete only the next day, and payment reconciliation files are generated a day later as well. The reconciliation rule has to say whether a record is booked on the day the business happened or on the day the file arrived. If it is the day it happened, a usage record that arrives the next day still goes back to yesterday’s period, and yesterday’s difference cannot be closed before the file arrives. If it is the day the file arrives, the period can close on time, but usage from the last day of the month falls into the next month and can be one day off the carrier’s calendar month. Once the choice is made, late usage records and refunds follow the same rule. When SimtoLink checks carrier charges, a period whose file has not arrived stays to be checked, so a payment amount is not confirmed from incomplete data.