Reconcile two spreadsheets without losing two days to it
It is month-end. The source file says one thing. Finance's spreadsheet says another.
Somewhere in hundreds of thousands of rows there are a handful of breaks, and you are the one who has to find them.
Send me the two files. I send back a break report. The first one is free.
Why month-end reconciliation still eats days
Nobody plans to reconcile by hand. It just happens.
- The file is too big for Excel, so it gets split. Then the split gets checked.
- The columns have different names on each side, so someone builds a lookup. Again.
- One side rounds to 2 decimals, the other to 6. Every row "breaks".
- VLOOKUP matches the first hit, not the right one. Duplicates hide.
The cost is not the two days. It is the break you missed, signed off, and found in next month's numbers.
How to reconcile two files properly
Compare CSV, Excel, XML, JSON and PDF
PDFXLSXCSVXMLJSONCSV inside JSON/XML
The source arrives as XML with a CSV buried inside it. Finance works in Excel. Someone forwards a PDF statement.
You should not have to convert any of it by hand first. Multi-GB files are fine.
What you get back
- A list of every break, grouped by type: missing, extra, duplicate, value difference.
- Both values side by side, so you can see the difference without opening two files.
- The rules that produced it, so next month's run is the same check, not a new one.
Hours become minutes. And the check is repeatable, which a spreadsheet rarely is.
How the free proof works
- Tell me what you reconcile and how often (form below).
- Send two files. Anonymised or sample data is fine.
- We agree the key and the column mapping. I run it and send the break report.
If it finds nothing, you have proved the data is clean. That is useful too.
Questions about reconciling two spreadsheets
How do I reconcile two spreadsheets with different column names?
You map them once. Their "MktVal_GBP" becomes your "Market Value". The rule is saved and reused every month, so nobody rebuilds it at month-end.
Can it match on more than one column?
Yes. Fund + ISIN + date, account + security + as-of date, whatever identifies a row for you. Matching is on the key, never on row order.
What file formats can I compare?
PDF, XLSX, CSV, XML and JSON, including a CSV buried inside XML or JSON. The two files do not need to be in the same format.
How big can the files be?
Multi-GB is fine. A file too big for Excel is exactly when a manual check stops working.
Is the free proof really free?
Yes. Two files, one break report, no charge. Anonymised or sample data is fine.
What if it finds no breaks?
Then you have evidence the data is clean. That is the point of a reconciliation.