A Bank Reconciliation is simply a process that matches your Money In and Money Out Records with your Bank Account.
It is an important process because it provides you with a check as to the accuracy of your records and can therefore save your accountant a lot of time at the end of the year.

The monthly Bank Reconciliation is simply checking the deposits and payments on your Bank Statement against your records and making sure that everything on your bank statement is in your records.

Click on the Bank Reconciliation tab on the left hand side.

Record your Opening Bank Balance:

1. Record your Closing Bank Statement Balance for the month prior of your first reconciliation (or $0 if you are reconciling a new account.)

3. This brings us to the Uncleared Deposits (Money In) page where you need to record any deposits from previous months that have not yet appeared on your Bank Statement.
This is unusual with Bank Deposits but sometimes might occur. If it does, you only need to record the total deposit, not the individual transactions as we only need the amount to match the amount that appears on our bank statement. Simply record the last day of the month in Day, tab to Total Amount and record the amount of the deposit. Allocate the deposit to any Allocation Column (it is before your records commence so should not affect your reports) and then record the amount in the Bank Deposits column. 

4. Click on [Next] to go to the page for recording any Uncleared Payments (Money Out). This is more common and will occur when you send a cheque to someone and they don’t bank it until after the end of the month.

5. Record any Bank Payments from previous months that have not yet appeared on your Bank Statement. Remember to record the cheque number as well as the amount in the Total Bank Payments column.

6.When you have recorded all uncleared deposits and payments, click on [Save] to save your reconciled Opening Bank Balance.

To begin reconciling your records to your bank statement, click on [Next].

Click on [Next] to continue.

Step 2: Reconcile Money In (Deposits)
The Reconcile Deposits window lists all the deposits entered in the Money In Record. Check the deposits on your Bank Statement against the list of Deposits.

Any entries left un-ticked should correspond to the deposits that have been put into the bank too late to appear on the bank statement for the month. This will be rare but may occur on the last day of the month.

Once you have checked all your deposits, click on the [Next] button. 

The Allocate Money In window will appear so you can record any transactions you have discovered on your bank statement that have not been entered into the program without having to leave the Bank Reconciliation process. As you are entering these transactions during the Bank Reconciliation process they will automatically be treated as reconciled.

When you have finished, click on [Next] on your keyboard to continue. 

Step 3: Reconcile Money Out (Payments)

Check the debits on your Bank Statement against the transactions in your Reconcile Money Out list.
When you get a match, click in the checkbox at the right side of the payment in the list and tick the entry on your Bank Statement.

If a cheque on the list differs from the amount on the bank statement, you have probably made an error on your cheque stub. Leave the transaction unchecked. When you have completed the rest of the reconciliation you will need to correct this in your Money Out Record and then redo the Bank Reconciliation that should only require matching of this transaction.

Any entries left un-ticked should correspond to the cheques you have written that have not yet been presented at the bank. The total of these entries will be displayed as Payments Not Shown in the Bank Statement information section on the Bank Reconciliation screen.

The Allocate Money Out window will appear so you can record any transactions you have discovered on your bank statement that have not been entered into the program without having to leave the Bank Reconciliation process. As you are entering these transactions during the Bank Reconciliation process they will automatically be treated as reconciled.

When you have finished, click on [Next]

Step 4: Balance and Lock your Records

The summary information from both your records and the bank will be displayed. If you reconcile then the Records Balance and the Bank Balance will agree.

Click on the [Finish] to continue.

A message will ask whether you wish to lock your records at this time. When you have completed recording transactions for any month and it has been reconciled it is advisable to lock your records to prevent any accidental changes that might affect your records.

To lock your records, click on [Lock]. If you do not want to lock your records at this time, click on [Don’t Lock].

If there is a discrepancy between your records and bank statement, the [Finish]
button will be replaced by a [Next] button that will save the deposits and payments you have checked off to give you the opportunity to find what is causing the discrepancy without having to check everything off when you process your Bank Reconciliation again. 

If you need to unlock your records for any reason such as changing an allocation, go to the Bank Reconciliation screen and click on the [Unlock] button.

If you unlock a month and change anything in the Bank Deposits column of your Money In Record, or the Total Bank Payment column in your Money Out Record this will affect your reconciliation, not only for this month but for any future month as well.
Therefore we recommend that you print your Bank Reconciliation report every month.

Please Note: The Bank Reconciliation process has Tabs that allow you to select a different step in the process. However, we highly recommend that you use the [Next] button and only use the Tabs to make changes such as changing the Bank Statement balance.