Finance
How to reconcile COD records against shipment data
2 min readUpdated 22 January 2026PostVery product team
COD reconciliation is matching work: shipments on one side, credits on the other, and a shrinking list of things that do not line up. Done weekly it takes minutes. Left for a quarter it becomes an archaeology project.
The three records you are matching
- 1The shipment record, carrying the expected collectable amount.
- 2The delivery confirmation, which tells you collection should have happened.
- 3The settlement credit, which proves the money reached your account.
A weekly method
- 1Import the settlement statement for the period.
- 2Auto-match every line that carries a shipment reference.
- 3For lines without a reference, match on amount within the delivery window and confirm manually.
- 4Review short collections — delivered amount lower than expected.
- 5Age the remaining unmatched delivered shipments and escalate anything past your threshold.
- 6Export the period report before closing the week.
Common discrepancies
| Pattern | Usual cause |
|---|---|
| Delivered, no credit | Settlement lag, or credit in a later statement |
| Credit, no shipment | Reference mismatch or a manual booking not recorded in software |
| Short collection | Amount changed after label print |
| Duplicate credit | Statement overlap across two periods |
What software can and cannot do
Software can match, age and report. It cannot see money it is not given data about. If your statements do not carry shipment references, reconciliation will always include a confirmation step — the gain is that the candidate list is short and the history is recorded.