Statement reconciliation most often means bank statement reconciliation: comparing the cash transactions in an organization's books with the entries on the statement issued by its bank, and explaining every difference. The main entry sets out the steps, the usual reconciling items such as outstanding checks and deposits in transit, and the controls around the process.
The shorter term is also used for other statements. In accounts payable, supplier statement reconciliation compares the invoices and payments a company has recorded for a supplier with the statement the supplier sends, to find missing invoices, duplicate payments or unapplied credits. Card programs reconcile cardholder or corporate card statements against expense records. Payment companies reconcile statements and reports from processors, card networks and partner banks against their own ledger.
In each case the method is the same. Items that agree are matched and cleared, and the remainder are investigated as a reconciliation break. Electronic statements in formats such as camt.053 allow most of the matching to be done by automated reconciliation software.