Who Is The Person Who Makes Sure Your Money Actually Arrives?
It’s month-end. You know income payments have landed somewhere. Provider statements are sitting in inboxes. Transactions need matching to clients. Discrepancies need investigating. Regulatory records need updating. And somewhere in the middle of client meetings, compliance deadlines, and new business development, someone needs to make sense of it all.
For many advisory firms, that “someone” is a key person whose holiday plans make the team nervous. Or it’s the practice principal spending evenings reconciling payments when they should be focusing on growth strategy. Or it’s a rotating cast of team members!
There are the firms who’ve discovered there’s a better way
Angela Richardson leads Jigsaw Tree’s income reconciliation outsourcing team and over the past decade, her team have been the one many team firms rely on to handle one of their most critical and time consuming back office functions. Her team work with firms ranging from small practices processing a few hundred thousand in annual commission, to larger organisations handling millions across complex structures. We asked Angela a few questions, starting with; is income reconciliation a time drain? This is what she told us!
The time drain is worse than you think; it can be 240 hours annually!
Most principals estimate income reconciliation takes “a few hours a month.” When we actually track the time, the reality is often 15-20 hours monthly once you include:
- Downloading and reviewing provider statements
- Matching transactions to client records
- Investigating discrepancies and missing payments
- Updating CRM and accounting systems
- Producing management reports
- Chasing platforms for corrections
- Reconciling between multiple systems
For a firm processing £2-3 million in annual commission, that’s 180-240 hours annually. At an administrator’s cost of £30,000, you’re spending £4,500-£6,000 in direct salary cost alone.
The accuracy problem compounds over time
When income reconciliation isn’t someone’s core expertise, errors accumulate. Small discrepancies get noted but not investigated. Payments go unreconciled for months. Provider errors slip through because nobody has the experience to spot patterns. Before long, you’re sitting on a compliance risk you don’t even know exists.
Ask Angela!
My team operates as an extension of your own, handling the complete income reconciliation process from start to finish. It’s about giving principals their time back. Many of the firms we work with started doing income reconciliation themselves because they didn’t think outsourcing was an option. Once they see how much time they were spending and risk they were carrying , the decision becomes obvious.
Jigsaw Tree have worked with Greystone Financial Services as their outsourcing partner for over ten years:
“Revenue management is the lifeblood of financial services, but for Greystone, processing 180,000 transactions annually had become an operational nightmare. Through Jigsaw Tree’s comprehensive discovery process and targeted outsourcing solution, we transformed revenue reconciliation from a resource heavy bottleneck into a streamlined, automated advantage in just three months. The result: improved accuracy through automation and freed-up capacity that could be redirected toward activities that create more client value.” Keith Horner, Financial Director, Greystone Financial Services
Is this what happens in your firm?
Your income payments land with providers and these statements are downloaded, every transaction identified and matched to client records in your CRM. Discrepancies get investigated immediately; whether that’s a missing payment, an incorrect amount, or a transaction that doesn’t match expectations.
Everything aligns. Management reports show exactly what came in, where it went, and what needs attention, along with records that are updated so your compliance trail is always current and audit ready.
All of this happens in the background, consistently, accurately, without consuming your internal capacity.
If the experience described by Keith is not your firms’ reality then why not change that?
Why firms choose to outsource income reconciliation to the Jigsaw Tree team
Over the years, we’ve identified four primary reasons firms partner with Jigsaw Tree for income reconciliation:
1. Eliminating key person dependency
2. Holiday peace of mind
3. Emergency business continuity
4. Cost efficiency and scalability
5. Genuine partnership approach
This isn’t a transactional vendor relationship. Our team operates as an extension of your business, understanding your specific requirements, flagging potential issues proactively and continuously improving efficiency. Reach out if you would like to hear more about what we can do to take away your income reconciliation headache: Book a discovery call – Jigsaw Tree
