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vgraft
August 16, 2022
Question

reconciliation issue

  • August 16, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views

Hello.  I'm pretty new to bookkeeping and am having trouble reconciling our books.  I confess that I have neglected this function so far this year, and am just starting to reconcile for the current year.  

 

I have a large (~$25,000) discrepancy, but I have triple-checked that ALL deposits and payments are entered properly.  I have looked at the beginning balances from when I initially set up the books, and they are accurate to the actual bank statement.  The discrepancy is exactly the amount showing as the account balance in the check register.  Maybe that is the way it's supposed to be?  

 

One issue may be that we changed bank accounts mid-year in 2021, but I have made sure that the ending and beginning balances are correct, as I mentioned previously.  

 

I'm obviously missing either deposits or payments somewhere, but just don't know the software well enough to understand where to look for the issue.  

 

Any help or ideas would be appreciated!  TIA

 

van

 

 

1 reply

K
Kurt_M
August 16, 2022

Hi there, @vgraft. I'm here, and I'll ensure you can get through this so you can proceed to reconcile an account in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

 

To get through this, we'll have to verify if you have missing transactions in your account. You can use the bank statement you downloaded from your bank as a reference and compare it to the transactions you have in your bank register in QuickBooks Desktop. If we determine that you have a transaction you haven't entered or recorded in your QBDT, you can recreate it to fix the discrepancy.

 

Once everything is good, you can proceed to do a reconciliation. To begin, here's how:

 

  1. Go to the Banking menu, then select Reconcile.
  2. In the Account field, select the bank or credit card account you want to reconcile.
  3. The Statement Date is automatically filled in. Usually, it's 30 or 31 days after the statement date of the previous reconciliation. Change it as needed to match your bank statement.
  4. QuickBooks also automatically enters the Beginning Balance. It uses the ending balance from your last reconciliation to get this number.
  5. Enter the Ending Balance based on your bank statement.
  6. Enter the Service Charge and Interest Earned based on your bank statement. Don't enter charges you've already entered in QuickBooks.
  7. Review the fields. If the info is correct, select Continue or OK.

 

Refer to this article for more information about reconciling an account in QBDT: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Desktop.

 

Additionally, I've got you this article for more information about the reconciliation workflow in QBO: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

 

@vgraft, know that you can always get back to me anytime if you need further assistance reconciling an account in QuickBooks. You can also post here again if you have any additional QuickBooks-related concerns. I'll be more than happy to help you out again. Take care, and have a good one!

V
vgraftAuthor
August 16, 2022

Thank you for the reply!  Your answer solved part of my problem, as I wasn't entering the ending balance.  However, I still may have an issue.

 

So, the account I'm attempting to reconcile was a new account we started using around mid-April 2021.  When the business switched to the new account, I set it up in QB as a new primary account and entered the beginning balance as of the date we began using it.  I have precisely entered all deposits and payments/checks since that time, which has been double-checked for accuracy.  When I begin the reconciliation process, the box where I enter the Ending Balance from the bank statement doesn't give me the option to enter that opening balance. It says the beginning balance is 0.00, which implies I have reconciled this account before, which I don't think I have done before.

 

Not sure I'm explaining this with enough detail for you to help....  Moral of the story is to NOT get behind on reconciling!

 

 

V
vgraftAuthor
August 16, 2022

I should clarify that the new account was already i use as a secondary account that was not tracked in QB, so there was an existing balance of ~$17,000 already in there, which I set as the opening balance.

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