Manual Reconciliation of Unreconciled Bank Statements

Hello,

We have a situation where not all Bank Statement lines are reconciled before the AP or AR Period is closed for the month. So, in order to reconcile those Bank Statement lines efficiently the AP and AR period had to be opened up again to complete the reconciliation. Is this a normal process? The AP and AR Manager are not happy with opening and closing of the AP and AR periods after they have been reconciled, I am wondering if this is a bug which needs a patch?

Thanks,