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I-Already-Had-A-Username
December 8, 2021
Question

A few checks revert from cleared to uncleared every month

  • December 8, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

Quickbooks desktop 2021

 

I have pretty much zero knowledge on how any of this works, but the accounting team needs help with a problem that I am having no luck finding any information on in the self-help sections. 

 

There are six checks in our system that go back several months. There seems to be nothing unique or strange about these checks. The accountant marks these checks as cleared (I don't know what that means, I can't find a simple, to the point "how to clear a check" answer anywhere). The next month she finds that these same six checks are uncleared and must clear them again. 

Approaching this from a technical perspective and not an accounting perspective, what can go wrong to cause a check to go from cleared to uncleared multiple times over the course of several months?

2 replies

Tori B
Tori B
December 8, 2021

Hey there, @I-Already-Had-A-Username.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to the Community for support. Great job utilizing our self-help articles. 

 

In QuickBooks Desktop, when a transaction is marked as cleared, it typically means reconciled. If reconciled/cleared transactions are showing as uncleared, this occurs when a future date is entered in the Statement Date field of the Begin Reconciliation window. QuickBooks will assign the statement date to each transaction as it's cleared. 

 

To help prevent these transactions from showing as uncleared, check the date in the Statement Date field of the Begin Reconciliation window before continuing with the reconciliation. Make sure the date does not occur in the future.

 

For additional details about this process, check out Resolve common issues on the Previous Reconciliation Report.

 

However, if this is not the case for you, it could be possible that you have data integrity issues within the company file, causing the checks to show as uncleared. Don't sweat. We have the tools to resolve the matter within QuickBooks. These tools are called Rebuild and Verify. I've included the steps to run the tools below. 

 

Rebuild data

  1. Choose File, Utilities, then Rebuild Data.
  2. You will receive a warning message to backup your company file, press OK
  3. The Rebuild Data utility starts as soon as the backup is finished.
  4. Click OK when you get the message "Rebuild has completed."

 

Verify data

  1. Choose Window, then Close All.
  2. Verify Data. Choose File then Utilities. Click on Verify Data.

 

Once the Rebuild has been completed, take a look at the checks to see if they are still showing as uncleared. Check out Verify and Rebuild Data in QuickBooks Desktop for additional details about this process. 

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I'm always here to lend a hand. Take care! 

 

 

BigRedConsulting
BigRedConsulting
December 11, 2021

@I-Already-Had-A-Username 

RE: Approaching this from a technical perspective and not an accounting perspective, what can go wrong to cause a check to go from cleared to uncleared multiple times over the course of several months?

 

In most cases this means someone has edited the checks - for some reason - and changed the cleared status. You can check to see if someone has repeatedly edited those checks using the Audit Trail report, which is available on the QB menu at Reports | Accountant & Taxes.

 

Unfortunately the cleared status column, "Clr", is not available on this report.  However, if you see changes to the checks but don't see any highlighted changes on the report, it may be the cleared status was changed.

 

Note that, clearing checks using the Reconcile process does not create an Audit Trail event, but doing so in the bank register does.

 

In any case, if you see changes on the report and you have user logins set up for the file, then you can see who changed the checks and when.

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