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Reconciling Loan: Why Does QBO Presume to Know Statement Ending Date & Balance?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 26, 2021
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I'm reconciling a long-term liability for the first time. In the reconciliation screen, it presumes to state a statement ending date (not today's date). It's wrong.

It also presumes to state a statement ending balance which is also wrong.

I don't recall ever entering any information about this loan in QBO. Thinking I might have done it and forgot, I've been all over the interface to see if maybe I had entered it at some point but see nothing.

(I had hoped to link this loan to our bank, but although I can arrange for QBO to have access to the Bank's loan account, QBO fails to offer to link it to a long-term liability; QBO only offers to link it to a checking account or a credit card, both of which are wrong.)

Where is QBO getting this (wrong) information?

QuickBooks Online

Best answer by MirriamM

Hello again, jeffbean. Thanks for getting and providing additional information.

There are two reasons why there's a beginning balance in the first time reconciliation in QBO.

First, there's a reconciled transaction in your Bank Registered marked as "R". Second, connected online where QBO will create an opening Balance based on the oldest transaction downloaded online.

To determine the cause of those opening Balance/Beginning Balance, let's go to the Register. Look for a transaction that is marked as "R", then remove the "R" or delete the transaction so your Bank will start to zero.

If the account hasn't been reconciled yet, then you should have the ability to cancel the reconciliation and start over. Starting over will allow you to choose the Starting Date and the ending date of your reconciliation.

Keep me posted on how things go on your end. I'm here to help.

M

MirriamM

I appreciate your input from every angle, @jeffbean.

When reconciling an account in QuickBooks Online (QBO), you'll need to enter statement information. Let's say you'd want to reconcile a bank statement for the month ending January 2021, so that’s what you’ll enter as the end date. Then, check your bank statement ending balance and enter it as an ending balance in the reconciliation window. As the beginning balance field will be auto-populated with the end balance of the previous month. Thus, the ending balance of the prior month should match the beginning balance of the next month. And your QuickBooks Online register balance at the end of the last month should certainly match the same on your bank statement.

As for the reason why the Loan showing on your QuickBooks account when you've not remember entering it in the system, you can use the Audit Log tool feature. This way, you'd able to verify if another user was the one entering the Loan.

To learn more about reconciliation topics, you can browse them through this one-stop hub article: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Let me know if you have any other questions about this or anything QuickBooks related. The Community has your back and I'm here if you need further assistance. Have a great day.

J

jeffbeanAuthor

@MirriamM Thank you for the response. I could have been more clear: there's no question I'm the only one making any changes to our books on QBO. We're a two-person shop. But to be sure, I did check the audit logs, as you suggested, and the only activity is what I I recall, which was to setup the account in the chart of accounts and matching a single banking deposit to it as the first and only transaction appearing in the account.

Back to my question.

QBO wrongly states both the statement ending date and the ending balance in the reconciliation screen. Neither was entered by me (or by anyone else) as is proven by the Audit Log. Both the date and the amount are wrong: there has not been a statement issued by the bank yet for there to be an statement ending date or an ending balance amount. And the ending balance amount does not equal the actual balance as shown by the bank (not that QBO should have any way of knowing, because as I think I noted, QBO fails to link to bank for a long-term liability account). The account has never been reconciled before.

In short, I didn't enter the wrong data and I see no way QBO could have received any data from my bank.

Where did QBO get this data? And why is it wrong?

M

MirriamMAnswer