If you sell in Nepal today, money reaches you from at least three directions: an eSewa wallet transfer, a Khalti payment, a bank deposit or QR scan, and very often cash on delivery (COD) collected by a courier. Each one lands in a different account, on its own timeline, with its own fees. By the end of a busy week — and especially during Dashain and Tihar — your sales numbers and your actual bank balance rarely match. That gap is where mistakes, missing money, and VAT headaches hide.
Reconciliation simply means proving that every sale you recorded actually turned into money you received. Done well, it takes a few minutes a day. Done badly (or never), it becomes a painful guessing game at month-end. Here is a practical system built for how Nepali shops really operate.
Why payments don't match your sales
Before fixing the problem, it helps to know exactly where the differences come from:
- Settlement delay: A customer pays via eSewa or Khalti today, but the money may settle to your linked bank account on a later date. The sale and the deposit fall on different days.
- Gateway fees: Wallets and payment processors deduct a small charge. If you sold goods worth NPR 1,000, you might see NPR 985 land in your account. The missing NPR 15 is a fee, not a loss — but only if you record it.
- COD timing and shortfalls: Couriers like Pathao, NCM, Aramex, or Upaya collect cash and remit it in batches, minus their delivery fee. Returns and refused parcels mean some "sales" never become cash.
- Refunds and partial payments: A customer pays half by Khalti and half in cash, or you refund a wallet payment. These split or reverse the original amount.
- Manual entry errors: A transaction typed as NPR 1,500 instead of NPR 15,000, or a payment marked received that never arrived.
Set up clean records before money moves
Most reconciliation pain is created at the point of sale, not at month-end. Tighten the front end first.
Give every sale one reference number
Each order should carry a single order or invoice ID that travels with it everywhere — on the customer's receipt, in your POS, and in the note field when they pay. When a Khalti or eSewa payment comes in tagged with that ID, matching it back to the sale takes seconds instead of detective work.
Record the gross amount and the fee separately
Always book the full sale value (what the customer paid) as revenue, then record the gateway or courier fee as a separate expense. If you only enter the net amount that hits your bank, your sales figures shrink, your VAT base is wrong, and you lose track of how much you're paying in fees.
Keep PAN/VAT in mind from the start
If you are VAT-registered, VAT is calculated on the gross sale value, not on the amount left after fees. Keep your tax invoices tied to gross sales so that when you file with the Inland Revenue Department, your declared sales match your recorded sales. Reconciling against net deposits is one of the most common reasons a shop's VAT return doesn't tally with its books.
A simple daily reconciliation routine
You don't need an accountant for this — just fifteen consistent minutes. Do it daily during peak season, weekly when things are calm.
- Pull your sales list for the day. Every order, with its reference number, gross amount, and the payment method the customer chose.
- Open each payment source. Log into your eSewa merchant view, your Khalti merchant dashboard, and your bank statement (mobile banking or e-statement). Note the courier's COD remittance report too.
- Match line by line. Tick off each sale against the matching deposit. Confirm the difference between gross and received equals the expected fee — nothing more.
- Flag anything unmatched. A sale with no payment, or a deposit with no sale, goes on a short "to investigate" list rather than being forced to balance.
- Record fees and write the day off. Once everything matches, log the total fees as an expense and close the day. Tomorrow starts clean.
Handle the three gateways' quirks
- eSewa: Check whether a payment is a direct wallet transfer or a settled merchant payout — they appear differently and on different dates.
- Khalti: Use the merchant dashboard's transaction export and reconcile by reference, not by amount alone, since multiple orders can share the same value.
- Bank/QR: Connect IPS or Fonepay QR deposits are often labelled only with a transaction ID. Ask customers to add the order number in the remarks so you can match them.
Don't let COD become a blind spot
Cash on delivery is still huge across Nepal, and it's where money quietly leaks. Treat each COD order as "payment pending" until the courier actually remits it. When the remittance arrives, match the batch against your dispatched orders, confirm the delivery fee deducted, and mark returned parcels as cancelled — not as paid sales. Reconciling COD weekly stops you from celebrating revenue that was never collected.
Close the month with confidence
If your daily matching is clean, month-end is just a summary: total gross sales, total fees, total refunds, and total received across all channels. Compare the received figure to your combined bank and wallet balances. Any remaining gap should be explainable in one line — a pending settlement or an unremitted COD batch — not a mystery.
This is exactly the work a unified system removes. With Saauzi, your online store, in-shop POS, and connected payment methods (eSewa, Khalti, and bank) record into one place, so each sale already carries its reference and payment status. Instead of stitching three dashboards together by hand, you reconcile against a single source — which matters most when Dashain orders are pouring in and you have no time to chase mismatches.
Your takeaway
Reconciliation isn't accounting theory — it's protecting money you've already earned. Start tomorrow with three habits: give every order one reference number, always record gross sales with fees logged separately, and match sales to deposits daily instead of monthly. Build the routine before the festive rush, and your books will stay clean even on your busiest day of the year.
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