Comment by bennett023

Member of the benchmark team here! Yeah, agree "as close to zero" is a bit imprecise. What we're comparing is the ledger balance (which should include pending transactions / transactions after the statement date) to the statement balance (which wouldn't include those).

The point of the reconciliation check mentioned in the report is to precisely account for that difference (identifying all the transactions that add up to the difference between account balance & statement ending balance and account for those differences). The differences can also be addressed through appropriate journal entries or other adjustments to ensure accuracy in the financial reporting.