Accounting Systems Without Bank Feeds vs Open Banking?

Working with a client recently, I was surprised to learn their accounting system doesn't offer bank feeds. Even worse, the software limits the number of transactions in a bank file upload to about one day's worth, making daily uploads necessary. This setup forces core financial tasks like reconciliation and monitoring spending limits to be fully manual. If no one is available to download and upload files from the bank, all related activities grind to a halt.

This limitation hits small organisations like my client the hardest, especially those with little or no backup when staff are on leave or unwell. Frankly, it feels lazy on the vendor's part. Since the advent of open banking, Australia's major six banks have made it simple for software vendors to automate these processes for their clients.

Open banking, established under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Act 2019, is designed to give consumers and businesses greater access to their data and encourage competition between banks. For years now, CBA, NAB, Westpac, ANZ, BOQ, and Macquarie have complied with the legislation's basic requirements, which are more than sufficient to enable simple bank feeds. After reviewing some of their technical documentation, I found it refreshingly straightforward.

There are even intermediaries like Frollo, Basiq, and Yodlee that make it easy to consolidate access to all banks with one technical integration activity, making it more convenient and cost-effective for vendors. I know from experience that Xero provides bank feeds (I think via Yodlee).

I would urge anyone who has this type of limitation in their accounting software to apply some pressure to their vendor to provide a remedy.

Andrew Walker
Technology consulting for charities
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-walker-the-impatient-futurist/

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