The brand's statement says one thing. Your Tally says another.
Last reviewed·ReconPe Editorial
Every month-end, two versions of the same account land on your desk: the brand's statement of account, and your own Tally party ledger. They never quite agree — and the difference is not an accounting nuisance. It is where short-paid claims and unbooked credit notes hide. Here is how to tie them out properly, claim by claim.
What is the brand's statement of account?
It is the brand's monthly summary of your account with them — every invoice raised on you, every payment received, every credit and debit note issued, and the closing balance they believe you owe. In other words: the brand's version of your purchase ledger. Your Tally holds your version. Supplier-statement reconciliation — what accountants call this tie-out — is the discipline of making the two versions agree, line by line, and classifying every line where they don't.
The three-way tie: promised → issued → received
Accounts-payable teams run a 3-way match on invoices. A dealer's scheme money needs the same discipline, on three different documents: promised (what the scheme circular says you earned), issued (the credit note on the brand's statement), and received (the voucher actually posted in your Tally). A claim is only done when all three agree. Every disagreement has a name, and each name has a different owner:
| Outcome | What it means | Whose problem it is |
|---|---|---|
| Settled | Promised, issued, and booked all agree for the claim. | Nobody's problem — this line is done. |
| Brand shortfall | The brand credited less than the scheme circular promised (or nothing at all). | The brand's problem — chase it with the circular and the arithmetic. |
| Booking gap | The credit note exists on the brand's statement but was never posted in your Tally. | Your problem — your books overstate what you owe the brand and understate your margin. |
| Over-credit | The brand credited more than the claim promised. | Check before celebrating — usually another claim netted in, or an error that gets clawed back. |
This month-end tie-out is one half of dealer scheme reconciliation. The other half — recomputing what each scheme should have paid — is covered in the 2026 dealer scheme guide.
A worked example: three credit notes, three different truths
The brand's June statement shows three credit notes totalling ₹94,100. Your schemes actually earned ₹97,600. Your Tally has posted ₹84,500. Three numbers, none of them agree — and each disagreement is a different problem:
| Credit note | Scheme | Promised | On statement | In Tally | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN-2201 | Price protection · May drop | ₹18,000 | ₹18,000 | posted | Settled |
| CN-2215 | QPS Q1 · 140 units | ₹70,000 | ₹66,500 | posted | Short ₹3,500 |
| CN-2238 | Sell-out offer · June | ₹9,600 | ₹9,600 | missing | Not in Tally |
CN-2215 paid ₹66,500 against a promised ₹70,000 — ₹3,500 short. Exactly the short-pay from the QPS worked example: visible only against the circular's slab rate, never on the statement itself.
CN-2238 for ₹9,600 sits on the statement but was never posted in Tally. Until it is, your books say you owe the brand ₹9,600 more than you do — and your margin on that offer looks worse than it is.
Note what the totals would have told you: nothing useful. ₹94,100 issued vs ₹84,500 booked flags a difference — but only the claim-by-claim tie shows that ₹3,500 of it is the brand's problem and ₹9,600 is yours.
How do you reconcile a brand statement with your Tally ledger?
- 1Export your Tally party ledger for the period. From Tally, export the brand's party ledger and credit-note register for the statement period (a plain CSV export works). This is your 'received' leg — what your books say actually landed.
- 2Get the brand's statement of account. Download the monthly statement of account from the brand or distributor portal, or take the emailed copy. This is the 'issued' leg — every invoice, credit note, and debit note the brand says exists.
- 3Match credit note by credit note — never total to total. Tick each credit note on the statement against a posted voucher in your ledger using the CN number and amount. A statement total that matches your ledger total can still hide a short-paid claim and an unbooked credit note that offset each other.
- 4Classify every gap: brand shortfall or booking gap. A credit note smaller than the scheme promised is a brand shortfall — recoverable, chase the brand. A credit note on the statement missing from Tally is a booking gap — fix your books before it misstates margin and payables.
- 5Recompute what was promised — the third leg. For each claim, recompute the promised amount from the scheme circular (slab × combined quantity, price drop × unsold units). Issued-vs-booked alone proves your ledger; promised-vs-issued is where the brand's short-payments hide.
Done by hand this is an hour per brand per month when nothing is wrong — and a day when something is. That is why most dealers tick totals, and why the line-level leaks survive.
How MarginOps runs this tie-out for you
Upload the files you already have — the brand's statement and your Tally exports — and MarginOps matches every credit note on the statement to the voucher in your ledger, and every claim to the scheme that earned it. Each line lands with its verdict named: settled, brand shortfall (with the recoverable amount and the slab arithmetic behind it), or booking gap (with the credit-note reference your books are missing). Across every brand you carry, in one view — and the AI never posts anything to your books; you approve every action.
Questions dealers ask
What is a brand's statement of account?
It is the brand's (or distributor's) monthly summary of your account with them: every invoice raised on you, every payment received from you, and every credit note and debit note they issued — with a closing balance of what you owe. It is the brand's version of your purchase ledger, and reconciling it against your own Tally party ledger is how you catch what the two versions disagree on.
What is a booking gap in dealer reconciliation?
A booking gap is a credit note that exists on the brand's statement but was never posted in the dealer's own ledger. The money was issued on paper, but your Tally doesn't know — so your books overstate what you owe the brand, understate your margin, and you may keep chasing a claim that was already paid. It is the opposite of a brand shortfall, where the brand paid less than the scheme promised.
Why doesn't my Tally match the brand's statement?
The usual causes, in order: credit notes on the statement never posted in Tally (booking gaps); timing — a CN issued late in the month posts in your books next month; credit notes posted to the wrong ledger head so the party ledger misses them; short-paid claims where the CN exists on both sides but for less than the scheme promised; and netting, where one statement line settles several claims at once. Each cause has a different fix, which is why classifying every gap matters more than forcing the totals to agree.
My statement total matches my ledger — am I safe?
No. Totals agree whenever the errors offset. A ₹3,500 short-paid QPS credit note and a ₹3,500 unposted expense adjustment cancel perfectly at the total level, and both are real problems. The tie-out has to run claim by claim — CN number against voucher against the scheme's promised amount — because that is the level where money actually goes missing.
Do I need a live Tally connection to reconcile this?
No. The reconciliation runs on the exports you already take: a Tally party-ledger or credit-note register export and the brand's statement file. MarginOps works the same way — you upload the files, it matches every credit note to your GL vouchers and to the scheme that earned it. There is no live connector into your Tally and no portal migration.
Related: Dealer scheme guide · Reconciling a QPS claim · GST on scheme credit notes · Scheme Leakage Audit