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Randall_R
February 20, 2025
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Credit card registers - reconciling multiple cards

  • February 20, 2025
  • 1 reply
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Hello,

My wife and I have a small business. We have a checking account and 2 credit cards for our business and they are all listed in our chart of accounts in QB. One credit card is considered the main card, and the other is the secondary card.  For a long time now, the "secondary" card hasn't reconciled.  I don't quite understand what is happening, but at times a transaction that should be in one card and not the other will appear in both accounts. Then, when reconciling the account, the transaction that shouldn't be in the other card register doesn't reconcile.  Also, due to our size we aren't using either card every month so some months we don't receive a statement. One month we might use it and have an amount due of $200. We have our account set to autopay, and after it pays, if we haven't used the card again and don't use it for the rest of the billing cycle, we won't receive a statement, so how does one reconcile without a statement? 

So, my 2 questions are: 
1) How can we fix the primary and secondary card issues to get them both reconciled and keep them both reconciled?

2) How do you reconcile an account when you don't receive a statement?

I'm probably not doing a bang up job of explaining this, but I hope someone out there can help. 

For the record, I'm using QuickBooks 2020 Mac Desktop on a Mac. 

    Best answer by FishingForAnswers

    Yes, you're 100% correct. For the sake of my sanity, I'm going to go with the words "primary" and "secondary" from here on out.  
    After I posted my previous message, I created a primary CC account, named it "PRIMARY" and didn't add any numbers. Then I made the 2 existing accounts secondary accounts of the primary and it worked. When I did this, as you mentioned earlier the charges and credits all followed the cards and flowed into the primary ledger and this helped me figure out what is probably the biggest problem. 

     

    When I had it set up wrong with one card set as the primary and the other as the secondary, for some reason some of the charges, and some of the credits were recorded into the incorrect ledgers. So now, one of two secondary ledgers has a balance of $658.82 and the other has a balance of ($658.82). 
    If I can get these two ledgers to balance, I should be good going forward. But how do you fix something like this? almost all of these debits and credits were balanced a long time ago. Can line items that have been balanced be moved from one ledger to the other?  


    @Randall_R  Something may have gone off with the way it was balanced earlier, but it doesn't matter that much as long as any fix is done within a non-closed year.

     

    A JE, or better yet, a transfer from one credit card to the other for $658.82 will zero it out, and it is already zero'd out on the parent account as a result of the subs offsetting each other. This approach assumes that it is simply a case of misapplied credit card payments rather than something more seriously wrong with the prior bookkeeping.

     

    You could probably dig into it and find the root causes, but that would be better done with either Screenshare by a trusted professional or by calling over a local accountant.

    1 reply

    FishingForAnswers
    FishingForAnswers
    February 20, 2025

    @Randall_R  Depends on some details.

     

    If both credit cards are tied to one credit card statement, then you should have both credit cards set up as their own credit card, but as subaccounts of a parent credit card.

     

    This will cause both subaccounts to flow into the parent account for a single balance. Payments on the card should be split between the two subaccounts for their share; this can be easy if you pay off the card each month, or a bit more complicated if you don't pay it in full. You reconcile the parent account, not the subaccounts.

     

    If each has their own statement, then they do not need to be subaccounts. Any errors you've noted are, well, most likely errors in entry.

     

    If you want more detailed answers on how to fix the errors, you should provide more details on the errors, screenshots, etc.

     

    To the second question, if you don't receive a statement, it is because nothing happened. If nothing happens, there is nothing to reconcile, so you simply don't. It would be like trying to organize a room you just organized.

    R
    Randall_RAuthor
    February 21, 2025

    Thank you. 
    It sounds like I set it up wrong. I think I made one card the a sub account of the other card rather then making both card sub accounts of a parent account.  Not sure how to fix that.  

     

    I get your point "if you don't receive a statement, it is because nothing happened" but the thing that happened is a payment occurred and my bank doesn't send a statement. If there were no charges and no payments, I get it. But I'll have a balance of say, $150.00 from the previous month. It'll auto pay (in full) this month and if I don't use the card during this month's entire billing cycle, even though a payment occurred, I won't receive a statement. The next time I receive a statement is the month I use the card again. 

      FishingForAnswers
      FishingForAnswers
      February 21, 2025

      @Randall_R  It's a pretty simple fix.

       

      You just take the subaccount status off of the relevant one.

       

      Then, create a parent account. Balance doesn't matter since the subs will flow into the parent.

       

      Then, change the two original accounts into subaccounts of the new account.

       

      To the second paragraph, that makes sense.

       

      If the payment was processed during the billing cycle of the period you want to reconcile, but did not receive a statement for, then the only thing that should have happened is the payment, notwithstanding fees and interest.

       

      Assuming that the credit card people would have the good sense to send you a statement if you are accruing interest and fees, you should be able to simply take the balance from the last statement, subtract your payment amount, and treat the result as your new ending balance.

       

      Set the ending date to whatever day of the month you'd normally expect from the cycle and reconcile as normal.

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