Standing service recon-detect-ledger-drift-monthly · revised 11 October 2026
Standing service
Detect reconciliation drift between your payment processor and ledger every month
Each month we compare your processor's payouts, refunds and fees with the ledger entries for them and send a drift list in which every difference is explained or marked open.
This starts a conversation by email. Nothing is charged, and nothing is monitored, until we have agreed scope, access and terms with you in writing.
The responsibility you hand over
An integration can drift out of step with the processor quietly: a refund is not mirrored, a payout has no entry, a fee is posted twice. Each difference is small, but they accumulate, and by month-end nobody can tell which run or which event caused them.
Who it’s for: A bookkeeper, finance manager or small-business owner whose payment processor and accounting system are connected by an integration and who only finds mismatches at month-end, when they are hard to trace.
Usually starts when: The bank reconciliation keeps turning up unexplained amounts, or a past month was corrected late because a refund or payout never reached the ledger.
The result: Every month you receive a drift list comparing the processor's payouts, refunds and fees with the ledger for the same period, in the agreed currency, in which each difference is either explained with evidence or open with the next step named.
What stays true, and what we do about it
No response-time guarantee is published for this new service. A target for delivering each month's list is agreed in writing before it starts, set to what a service at this stage can actually keep.
Hours are agreed in writing before the service starts. At launch the service is not staffed round the clock and runs once each month after the period closes.
What must remain true
- For each month, every payout, refund and fee the processor reports is matched to a ledger entry, or listed as a difference with its evidence
- No difference stays unexplained across two consecutive reports without being raised with you
What we watch
- The processor's read-only reports or exports for the month, such as its payout reconciliation report or its transaction report
- A read-only export of the matching ledger entries for the same period
When something happens
Scroll the table sideways to read it all.
| When | What we do |
|---|---|
| A month closes and both exports for it are available. | We produce the drift list and the summary and send them to the person you named. |
| A Stripe payout has no matching ledger entry. | We list it with its identifier and amount, and offer to scope the Stripe payout-matching job to fix the cause. Priced as: Match Stripe payouts to bank lines |
| A PayPal refund or fee appears in PayPal's report but not in the ledger. | We list it with its identifier, show whether the pattern repeats, and offer the PayPal refund-and-fee job to fix the cause. Priced as: PayPal refunds and fees in the ledger |
| A difference fits neither job. | We list it with the evidence and say what we could not establish; we propose a scope only if you ask. |
| A difference is larger than the tolerance you agreed or touches a closed period. | We flag it first in the summary and do not propose a correction ourselves; your accountant decides. |
We do on our own
- Read the exports and compare them
- Prepare the drift list and the summary
- Offer a fixed job as a next step
We ask you first
- Any change to a tolerance, a matching rule or the periods covered
- Any request for wider access to a system
- Starting any fix or backfill
We escalate to you when
- A difference touches a closed period or a reconciled bank line
- The same difference appears two months running
- The exports stop being available or change shape
How you know it held. Each month you can recompute the totals in the drift list from the same two exports, and the summary says how many items were matched, explained and open.
How we keep it true
This service is never finished. Each month's summary shows whether the thing it watches stayed true, and it continues until you end it.
Make every Stripe payout match one bank deposit line in Xero or QuickBooks Online Job Each time it fires
Each automatic Stripe payout in an agreed test period becomes one ledger entry equal to the bank deposit, with its gross, fees and refunds explained and a clearing balance that returns to zero.
When a payout has no entry
The fix for a recurring missing-payout cause is the job you can buy on its own.
Make PayPal refunds and fees appear in the ledger once each, linked to their sale Job Each time it fires
In a sandbox month with sales, a full refund and partial refunds, every PayPal refund and fee reaches the ledger exactly once, linked to its sale, and ledger net equals PayPal net.
When refunds or fees are missing
The fix for a recurring refund or fee gap is the job you can buy on its own.
What is included, and what is not
- A monthly drift list and a short written summary
- For each open item, the evidence and the offered next step, such as one of the fixed jobs that would remove the cause
- A running list of causes found, so repeated ones are visible
Included
- A monthly comparison for one processor account (Stripe or PayPal) and one ledger, in one currency, for the agreed period (further currencies are quoted separately)
- Totals and counts for payouts, refunds and fees, and a line-level match by the processor's own identifiers
- A drift list: matched, explained, and open items, each with the identifiers needed to find it
- A short written summary of what changed since last month and what is still open
Not included
- Bookkeeping, tax, audit or any accounting advice, or deciding how a transaction should be treated in your accounts
- Posting, editing or deleting records in your live accounting system: your authorised account holder does that
- Correcting differences: findings are reported, and any fix is a separate, agreed job
- Assurance, audit opinions or a statement that your accounts are correct
- Out-of-hours cover or any guaranteed response time
How we know it’s done
Agreed with you before work starts. Each check produces evidence you keep.
Each month's list covers every payout, refund and fee in the processor's export, and its totals can be recomputed from the two exports.
Evidence: The drift list, the two exports' row counts and your own recomputation.
Every difference shows its processor identifier, the ledger reference if any, the amount and a status of explained or open.
Evidence: The drift list rows for the month.
No new fix, post or edit has been made in your systems by us.
Evidence: Your own audit trail in the accounting system for the month, which shows no writes by our access.
Sign-off. You read each list and tell us whether the matching rule and tolerance still suit you. A month counts as delivered when you have received the list and the summary.
If it fails. If we cannot match a month because an export is missing or changed, we say so, explain what we need and do not guess. If the service is not working for you, you can end it at the end of any month.
When it fits, and when we stop
It fits when
- Your processor offers read-only reports or exports that list payouts, refunds and fees with identifiers
- Your accounting system can give a read-only export of the entries for those items, which you generate yourself; a user role is not a way to limit what we see, because a role shows whatever that role is allowed to see in the system
- Both exports can be limited to identifiers, amounts, dates, currencies and statuses, with customer names, email addresses and other personal columns left out
- Your bookkeeper agrees what counts as the same item and what tolerance, if any, is acceptable
- Real financial records are shared only after written agreement, through a secure handoff we agree with you
We stop and tell you if
- The ledger entries cannot be tied to processor identifiers and none can be added
- Most differences come from sources outside the agreed processor and ledger
- Reports are unavailable without giving us write access or login credentials, which we do not take
What could go wrong
The service only reads and reports, so there is nothing to undo. Ending it leaves your systems exactly as they are; you keep every list we sent.
Scroll the table sideways to read it all.
| Risk | How we handle it |
|---|---|
| A matched total hides two offsetting errors. | Matching is by identifier line by line, and totals alone are never reported as agreement. |
| An export is incomplete and the list looks cleaner than reality. | Each list states row counts for each export and the date range covered, so you can check completeness. |
| A recurring export carries personal data the comparison does not need, such as customer names or email addresses. | Exports are limited to identifiers, amounts, dates, currencies and statuses and you leave personal columns out before sharing; a file that arrives with them is returned to you for re-export rather than used. |
| A finding is read as an audit conclusion. | Each list says plainly that it is a data comparison, not assurance, and leaves every decision with you and your accountant. |
Each list is checked by a reviewer separate from the work that produced it before it is sent. No human supervisor is included unless your agreement names one. At launch the work is largely automated, and we say so.
Stays with a person
- You or your accountant act on every finding
- You approve any tolerance, matching rule or fix
Access we would need
- Read-only report or export access for the processor
- A read-only export from the accounting system that you generate (or, if you choose, a read-only user role that you create and can revoke, which sees whatever that role can see)
Questions
Is this an audit or a reconciliation service?
No. It is a data comparison between your processor and your ledger. It does not give assurance, does not post anything and does not replace your accountant's reconciliation.
What happens when it finds a difference?
The list explains it with identifiers. If a cause keeps repeating, we offer the fixed job that removes it; nothing starts without your written agreement.
Do you need access to my accounting system?
Only read-only exports that you generate, limited to identifiers, amounts, dates and currencies. If you would rather give a read-only user role, it sees whatever that role can see in your accounting system, which may be more than the agreed accounts, so we recommend the export. We never post or edit.
Also part of
Send an enquiry
Send us
- The processor, the accounting system and the currencies involved
- How payouts, refunds and fees are recorded in the ledger today, in a few sentences
- Who in your team reads the monthly list
Later, once you agree
- Read-only report or export access for the processor, set up and held by you
- A read-only export from the accounting system that you generate, limited to identifiers, amounts, dates, currencies and statuses for the agreed items; if you give a user role instead of an export, it sees whatever that role can see in the system, which may be wider than the agreed accounts, so check what it grants before you create it
- The processor export in the same form, with customer names, email addresses and other personal columns left out before it is shared
- A secure, company-controlled handoff route agreed before any access; no passwords, keys or customer records by ordinary email
Your processor account, accounting system, bank and records stay yours. We work from read-only exports that you generate, or from a read-only role you create and can revoke (which sees whatever that role can see), through a company-controlled handoff, never a personal login. We never post, edit or delete anything in your live systems; your authorised account holder acts on any finding.
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