How do I do a bank reconciliation?

Bank Reconciliation

Bank Reconcilliations are designed to highlight any differences between your banks records and your records entered on SortMyBooks. 

The key goal is to make your screen to match your paper statement exactly and in the same order. Otherwise you will tie yourself in knots. 

Such differences may occur, for example, because:

• A cheque issued by your company that has not been presented to the bank.
• A banking transaction such as bank charges applied, or interest earned, has not yet been recorded in your companies books.
• A customer may have made a lodgement directly into your account without informing you.

 For this reason, and to minimise the amount of work involved, it is good practice to carry out such reconciliations at monthly intervals.

Getting Started

To do your bank rec, you need to have a copy of your paper bank statement or a printout of your online statement in front of you.

If this is your FIRST bank rec, set your opening bank balance first under Accounts, Bank.

To start your reconciliation, Click Accounts, and Reconciliation. 

Set the ending balance, and end date to match what is on your paper bank statement, and click update.

The transactions appearing to the right should match what is on your paper, although possibly not in the same order.
Use your mouse to rearrange the transaction in the order they appear on your statement, and click match.

When you have matched all the transactions and your difference is zero, click Reconcile Matched. This will complete your bank rec.

It is a good idea to then review your bank rec report to ensure that all the outstanding transactions are correct.  

Click here to see how. 

Troubleshooting

If there is a transaction on your bank statement that is not on your screen, this could be for a few reasons:

1. You have not entered the transaction yet. Go ahead and enter it now.  

2. You have entered the right transaction with the wrong date. Fix the date.  (Use Accounts, transaction search to find it)

3. You have assigned a transaction to the wrong bank account. Fix the account.  (Use Accounts, transaction search to find it)

Then click on Reconciliation again to continue with your bank rec.

If there is a transaction that is on your screen, but not on your paper statement, this could be for a few reasons:

1. This is a cheque that has not cleared yet. Do not tick it off, you will be able to reconcile on a future statement. It will appear as an outstanding transaction on your bank rec report. 

2. You have entered a duplicate transaction. Delete it.  (Use Accounts, transaction search to find it)

3. You have entered the right transaction with the wrong date. Fix the date.  (Use Accounts, transaction search to find it)

4. You have assigned a transaction to the wrong bank account. Fix the account.  (Use Accounts, transaction search to find it)

Then click on Reconciliation again to continue with your bank rec.