> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.practiceownersguide.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What "reconciled" means

> "Reconciled" gets used loosely enough to hide the gap where money disappears. There are three different tie-outs — only one catches missing money.

"Reconciled" gets used loosely enough to hide the gap where money disappears. There are three different tie-outs:

| Tie-out                   | Who does it                                      | What it misses                                      |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------- |
| **Posting**               | The biller: every remittance applied to claims   | Takes the payer's word that money was sent          |
| **Bank reconciliation**   | The accountant: every statement line categorized | Says nothing about which claims a deposit covered   |
| **Remittance-to-deposit** | This page                                        | Nothing. This is the one that catches missing money |

## The one that matters

Every remittance matched to an actual deposit, and every payer deposit explained by a remittance. It catches what the other two can't:

* An 835 posted as paid whose EFT went to the wrong account (the classic [bank-switch](/guides/switch-banks) injury)
* Deposits short of their remittance: PLB recoupments, virtual card fees
* Checks deposited but never posted, or posted but never deposited
* A payer that silently stopped paying (expired enrollment, failed re-verification)

## The process

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
    A[Bank feed:<br/>payer deposits] --> M{Match}
    B[835s + parsed EOBs] --> M
    M -->|TRN where available| OK[Matched]
    M -->|heuristics for paper| OK
    M --> EX[Exception list<br/>owned, worked to zero]
```

Weekly or continuous. Match on trace numbers where they exist ([reassociation](/concepts/eft-reassociation)), amount/date/payer heuristics where they don't. The exception list is the deliverable: a healthy one is short and explainable, an unhealthy one is a backlog nobody reads.

## Why owners should care

It's the control that doesn't depend on trusting any single system or person. The PM system can be misconfigured, the biller behind, the payer misrouting. The deposit-side view catches all of it, and it's the only view that does. It's also what makes revenue-side fraud hard, since embezzlement survives on the gap between received and recorded.

<Note>
  **Lemma aside:** Lemma runs this matching continuously inside the account itself. The exception list is the product, not a spreadsheet ([docs](https://docs.getlemma.com/billing/reconciliation)).
</Note>