Starting reconciliation
First inspect your bank
statement for items that might not be in the
Quickbooks bank account register. You
may find an advantage to entering these items
before opening the Reconcile
window. (For the first reconciliation of a new account, see below.)
Start by opening the
account register for this account. The
reconciliation window, when it is opened,
will accept one service charge and one
interest deposit, each needing expense and
income accounts, respectively.
Transactions entered in this manner will not have any name in the
Payee
field. If the statement contains any other items that are not in the register, such as automatic payments, these should be entered. Of course, you could enter these transactions through
Write Checks or Make Deposits.
In my own operation, I have them set
up as memorized transactions (Chapter
7.) Each month, I bring each of them up,
and have only to enter the actual dollar
amount.
In any case, you should
open the register and enter any needed
transactions. That being done, go on to
open the Reconcile window.
Select
Activities|Reconcile,
which brings up this window.
Account To Reconcile
will display the name of the account whose register was open.
Opening balance
XE "beginning balance:reconciliation" is displayed, summing all historical transactions. It
may not be what you expect, but should not be changed, unless you clearly understand what you are doing,
and why. Except in the rare case of actual data file damage, discrepancies can only be due to editing of
previously reconciled transactions.
Ending balance
should be copied from your bank statement.
Interest Earned
or a Service Charge
should be entered, unless this has already been done. Each will
require an account. If necessary, you can open the chart of accounts and add an income or expense account.
These may well be classified as Other Expense or Other Income, since they do not come from your business
operations. The dates are not critical, but there is an advantage to using the same date as is shown on the
statement. This helps if detail verification becomes necessary. When entered, these items have the status of
cleared.
Deposits and Other Credits
and Checks and Payments
should be compared against the statement. Those
appearing on the statement should be checked, in the left-most column. I suggest that you work with a pencil
in one hand, also marking items on the bank statement. Each item in view should be on the bank statement,
and everything on the bank statement should be showing here, scrolling if necessary. The space bar, Tab, U
and T are useful for marking cleared items, varying with version. Mouse clicks will also do it.
Last Rpt
button prints the most recent previous reconciliation report XE "reconciliation report:print last" (in
recent versions.)
A transaction will be in one of three states: not cleared, cleared, or reconciled. If you switch between the
register and the reconcile window, you will observe some differences in marking certain transactions:
Status
|
Register
|
Reconciliation
|
Not cleared
|
(blank)
|
(blank)
|
Cleared but not reconciled
|
*
|
b
|
Reconciled
|
b
|
(not in list; included in beginning balance.)
|
|
Should you check some odd transaction, or leave it blank? The rule is simple:
You
are waiting for
the transaction
to appear on the
statement
|
blank
|
You
are not waiting
to see this
transaction,
because it is on
the statement, or
you know it never
will be
(transaction
reversed or
voided.)
|
b
|
|
Difference
value (at the bottom) is the amount not reconciled. With a successful reconciliation, it goes to zero
, and you may click Done
(and heave a sigh of relief!) Next you will have a chance to print a reconciliation
report. (In graphics versions 2.0 and 3.0, do it now or forget it; there are no provisions for printing prior
reconciliation reports.)
Printing the report, if elected, is the last step in reconciliation. Later versions display a dialog box, asking if the
report printed correctly. Once you check
Yes,
reconciliation is finished. That report is now the
Last Report,
and the previous report is deleted. All of the cleared transactions are now marked b in the register.
|