Abs unable to help with lost funds

My husband used an old Absa slip to pay funds in an Absa account for 4 consequetive months. 4 months later we discoved that the money was never received by the person intended and there is no record of payment in the correct account. Unfortunately we cleaned house for renovations & threw away o lot of stuff & cannot find the slips anywhere. Absa's response was that they cannot help unless we have an account number and we don't. As technology is so advanced today we thought Absa could assist in other ways like going back to the dates of payment & check what deposits was paid in on that day but unfortunely Absa says they cannot assist us in retrieving the lost funds without an account number. Is there really no help out there. Please help!