A bank statement full of batch payments
Panel managers pay in batches: one payment covers dozens of jobs, with a remittance advice by email or in the portal. Fees vary with the lender, the property value and whether the job was cancelled, abortive or needed a reinspection. Some fees are deducted for things like late reports under the panel's terms.
Someone in the office tries to match each batch to the jobs it covers, in a spreadsheet, at the end of the month. Unpaid jobs are hard to spot among hundreds. Queries to panel managers go by email, and the answers are not tracked.
Why fees go unreconciled
- Remittance formats differ by panel, and some are PDFs.
- Job references in remittances do not always match your own.
- Expected fees depend on rules that vary by lender and change over time.
- Abortive and cancelled jobs have their own fee rules, often forgotten.
- Deductions are not explained clearly and are accepted by default.
What unreconciled fees cost
Unpaid fees that nobody chases. Underpayments that go unnoticed. Office time spent matching by hand. And a finance picture that is always a month or two out of date, which makes it hard to know how profitable each panel really is.
| Item | Manual reconciliation | Automated matching |
|---|---|---|
| Batch payment | Split by hand from the remittance | Remittance read and split per job |
| Matching to jobs | Reference lookup, one by one | Matched by reference, address and date |
| Expected fee | Looked up in panel schedules | Calculated from your fee rules |
| Differences | Noticed if someone checks | Listed as unpaid, underpaid or unexpected |
| Queries | Emails, untracked | Logged per item with the answer |
The fee reconciliation we build
- Remittances are collected from the email inbox or downloaded from portals where access allows, and read, including PDFs, into lines per job.
- Bank transactions are pulled from Xero, QuickBooks or your bank feed and linked to their remittances.
- Each line is matched to your completed job by reference, with address and date as fallbacks, and a person resolves anything uncertain.
- Expected fees are calculated from the fee rules you hold for each panel and lender, including abortive and reinspection fees.
- Differences are listed: jobs completed but unpaid after a set time, payments below the expected fee, and payments for jobs you cannot find.
- Your office raises queries from the list, and answers are recorded against the item.
- A monthly summary shows fees earned, paid and outstanding by panel.
Whether a deduction is correct under a panel's terms is for your practice to decide and discuss with the panel. The reconciliation makes sure you see it.
A clear fee position
Month end becomes a review of a short exceptions list rather than a matching exercise. Unpaid jobs are chased while they are recent. Underpayments are questioned with evidence. Partners can see which panels pay reliably and what each is really worth to the practice.
Private survey fees can be included too, so outstanding balances from buyers who paid a deposit sit in the same picture.
When a panel changes its fee schedule, the change is entered once with its effective date, and jobs either side of the date are checked against the right rule. That removes a common source of confusion, where old and new fees overlap for jobs instructed before the change and completed after it.
Over time the exceptions list becomes a useful record for conversations with panel managers. If one panel regularly pays late or makes deductions your practice disagrees with, you can raise it with dates and job references rather than a general impression.
Are fees slipping through?
- Batch payments are matched to jobs by hand.
- You are not sure every completed job has been paid.
- Deductions are accepted without being checked.
- Abortive and reinspection fees are sometimes forgotten.
- You cannot say what each panel earns the practice.