Blog / Rwanda
How to reconcile MTN MoMo and Airtel Money payments with your books
Your customers pay by phone in seconds. Matching those payments should not take you hours.
3 October 2026 · 8 min read
Short answer: treat each wallet (MTN MoMo merchant, Airtel Money, each bank account) as its own account in the books. Bring in its statement, match every line to an invoice or bill by amount, date and reference, post the fees separately, and only then call the month reconciled.
Mobile money is the default way customers pay in Rwanda. The problem is not taking the money. It is knowing, a week later, which of forty identical 25,000 RWF payments belongs to which invoice.
The money is in the wallet. I just cannot tell you whose money it is.
Why MoMo is hard to reconcile
- References are free text. Customers type anything, or nothing, as the reason.
- Names do not match. The payer is often a relative, a driver or a staff member, not the client on the invoice.
- Fees are netted. Withdrawal and transfer fees shrink the balance without a matching document.
- Several wallets. MoMo, Airtel and two banks means four statements in four formats.
- Most accounting tools ignore it. They were built around bank feeds, so MoMo becomes a spreadsheet on the side.
A step by step method
- Give every wallet its own account in your chart of accounts. Never lump MoMo into "Cash".
- Ask for a reference on every invoice: the invoice number, printed big, with the merchant code next to it.
- Import the statement weekly, not monthly. Forty lines are easy, four hundred are not.
- Match exact amount plus reference first, then exact amount plus date, then the leftovers by hand.
- Post fees as an expense from the same wallet, so the balance in the books equals the balance on the phone.
- Keep a short "unknown payer" list and clear it before closing the month.
By hand vs in KromaOS
| Step | By hand | In KromaOS |
|---|---|---|
| Bring in the statement | Copy from the app into Excel | Import the statement to the wallet |
| Match payments | Scroll and search | Suggested matches to open invoices |
| Fees | Often forgotten | Posted as a fee line |
| Invoice status | Update separately | Marked paid when matched |
| Cash position | Add four statements | One figure across all wallets |
A day, after
Friday afternoon, reconciled
- 15:00Import this week's MoMo and Airtel statements. Thirty-eight lines, thirty-five matched already.
- 15:10Three unknown payers. Two match by amount and date, one gets a quick call.
- 15:20Done. The overdue list is now true, so Monday's follow-ups go to the right people.
Questions people ask
Should MoMo be recorded as cash or as a bank account?
As its own account, treated like a bank. It has a statement, a balance and fees, so it needs its own reconciliation.
How often should I reconcile mobile money?
Weekly. The volume of small payments makes monthly reconciliation slow and error prone.
What about payments in foreign currency?
KromaOS keeps the books in RWF and converts a foreign amount at the day's rate from Exchange Rates, or a rate you set on the payment.
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