Easier Account Reconciliation With Settlement Automation
Article contributor: Duane Betz / Client Learning Consultant
Did you know SHAZAM has settlement automation options you may not be using? We can help make account reconciliation easier and more efficient through our settlement automation process options.
SHAZAM sends your daily settlement entry via ACH to a designated account general ledger (GL) or demand deposit account (DDA)) that your financial institution has set up as a net total. The net total settlement is comprised of your institution’s cardholder activity (SSR110 report), terminal settlement (SSR120 report), including daily surcharge, and any exceptions activity (SSR114 report) for that day. In addition, by default, your daily prefund debits and credits post to the same account as your daily settlement account.
With the settlement options below, SHAZAM can ACH your settlement totals to multiple accounts at your financial institution. This automation process can help save you time and errors in many ways:
- Eliminate manual tickets that you might make to balance.
- Reduce bookkeeping errors due to transposing a posting entry or making an incorrect entry.
- When a staff member is out of the office, there’s no need to worry about catching up on entries because they’re posted automatically for you!
Plus, there’s no additional fee for these services!
If your financial institution establishes ATMs, you may enroll in terminal-level settlement and surcharge automation. With this feature, you provide SHAZAM the ATM account number(s) you use to reconcile your ATM activity, and we’ll send your terminal net settlement via ACH directly to the account.
If you surcharge at your ATM(s), you may also provide SHAZAM your income account(s), and we’ll send the surcharge income directly to your designated account. You must enroll in terminal-level settlement to take advantage of the surcharge automation.
When enrolled with terminal-level settlement and surcharge automation, you’ll receive the Acquirer Settlement Summary (SSR131) report daily. The report will detail the daily settlement entries sent to your designated account(s). If you’re already enrolled in terminal-level settlement, you receive the SSR131 today. Here’s an example of the SSR131 report: 
To enroll, complete the ATM Settlement/Surcharge Settlement form. The form is located in SHAZAM Access>Resource>Forms>Terminals. Then, email your form to SHAZAM EFT implementations at eftprojects@shazam.net.
SHAZAM’s enhanced exception settlement process may help reduce the time it takes to locate and reconcile the settlement for your exception activity. With this option, SHAZAM automatically moves your exception activity from the Settlement Exception Activity (SSR114) report to a designated account. You may have your issuer and acquirer totals from the SSR114 report go to the same or different accounts.
The last page of your SSR114 report will reflect the accounts that have been established, like the following example: 
Help make reconciling your SHAZAM daily settlement account easier and receive your daily prefund debits and credits in their own account. The daily prefunding debits and credits can be identified on the Prefunding Settlement Summary (SET045) report, shown below, and used to reconcile your designated prefunding account daily.
Enroll in the enhanced exception settlement and/or prefunding settlement by completing the ACH Authorization Agreement form in SHAZAM Resource>Forms>ACH. Then, email your form to SHAZAM EFT implementations at eftprojects@shazam.net.
Let SHAZAM help make things easier. Enroll today! If you have questions, contact SHAZAM client support at 800-537-5427 (option 3, 2)