Reconcile hosting by connecting four records: the customer's order, the invoice, the payment and the delivered provider resource. Matching only invoice totals can miss a paid service that was never created or an active service that is no longer being billed.
IN THIS ARTICLE
01 Build a reconciliation set
- Choose the period and date basis. Export or review orders, invoices, transactions and active services using consistent identifiers and currency.
- Match each paid invoice to its payment reference and service or order. Check partial payments, applied credit, refunds and grouped payments separately.
- Compare active billing services with provider accounts. Confirm the remote identifier, package, owner and lifecycle status.
- List exceptions in actionable categories: paid but unprovisioned, provisioned but unbilled, duplicate charge, missing callback, unmatched provider account or incorrect recurring date.
- Investigate each exception before editing records. Check task logs and the provider's actual result, particularly after timeouts or migrations.
- Assign an owner and resolution to each mismatch. Record any approved financial adjustment and retain the reference to the original transaction.
02 Compare like-for-like amounts
An invoice total includes charges and possibly tax; a gateway deposit may be net of fees, refunds and settlement timing. A client credit adjustment may settle an invoice without a new bank receipt. Keep these categories distinct in the reconciliation.
For supplier costs, match the provider's resource or renewal charge to the service period you sold. Use currency-aware totals and investigate rounding or conversion differences rather than forcing an arbitrary balancing entry.
03 Worked example: reconcile a paid invoice and the bank receipt
This hypothetical example uses one currency, no refund and no currency conversion. Use your real invoice, credit and gateway references when applying it.
| Record | Example amount | What to match |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice total | 100.00 | The amount owed for the invoice. |
| Account credit applied | 20.00 | Previously available customer credit applied to this invoice. |
| New gateway payment | 80.00 | The gross payment linked to this invoice. |
| Gateway fee | 2.00 | A fee withheld from that payment in this example. |
| Net bank settlement | 78.00 | The resulting deposit, matched through the gateway settlement record. |
The invoice is settled by 20.00 of credit plus 80.00 of new payment. The 78.00 deposit is not evidence that the customer still owes 22.00. Trace the credit and fee separately, then confirm the associated hosting resource actually exists with the correct owner and package. Payment reconciliation alone does not prove delivery.
Common questions
Does an invoice marked Paid prove money was received?
Inspect the associated transaction or credit application. Some administrative status changes do not themselves record a payment, so trace the actual settlement evidence.
Should I recreate a missing account immediately?
Confirm the provider resource does not already exist under another identifier and that the original create request is not still pending. Then perform one reviewed recovery action for the existing service record.