Amatics Quick Book Tips: Reconciling Bank and Credit Card Accounts

Reconciling accounts can take hours . . . or minutes, depending on how efficiently you set up and manage your books. Reconciling accounts at regular monthly intervals reveals errors in your bookkeeping, ensures accuracy, and identifies potential frauds. This makes it essential to carefully track every transaction. One simple missed entry can snowball into a huge discrepancy over the course of one month, two months and so on. Accurately reconciling accounts is key to generating meaningful monthly reports.

Here are a few Amatics Tips that should make reconciling accounts a little easier:.

Tip 1: Confirm your beginning balance.

Your bank statement should match your beginning balance shown on the reconciliation screen. If it doesn’t, oops. This is caused from changing or deleting an already reconciled transaction. But fret not. Click the “Undo Last Reconciliation” button until the beginning balance matches the statement. Next, re-perform the reconciliations until the discrepancy is resolved. Make a backup of your file before “undoing,” and keep it handy in case the problem goes back farther than one or two months. Contact your accountant if you need help.

Tip 2: Check your ending balance. And then check it again.

Always check, and then double-check, your ending balance input when you begin the reconciliation. An innocent error, like a transposition, can fool you into thinking you’re missing a transaction. This also holds true for interest income and service charge entries.

Tip 3: Hide unnecessary transactions.

You can check the box on the upper right side to hide all transactions after your statement date. This will shorten the list of transactions you have to look through.

Tip 4: Utilize sorting options and check figures in the reconciliation screen.

You can sort by check or deposit date, check number, payee, or amount by clicking on these column titles. This is super helpful if you have a lot of transactions to check off. Also, reconcile whatever’s easiest first.

For example, if you normally have no problem reconciling your checks but tend to get stuck on deposits, reconcile the checks and payments first. This way you know where you’re off and only have to double check one side. Use the sort options to sort by check number which should also be outlined in order on your bank statement. Then, once you’ve reconciled everything on this side, match the count and dollar amount of debits on your bank statement to the amounts QuickBooks shows for checks and payments on the bottom left. If it matches, you’re set to move on to deposits! If not, you should be able to determine the exact discrepancy amount you’re looking for.

Once you determine the amount you’re off, double check that all of the reconciled transactions align with what cleared the bank account and tie to those check figures before moving forward.

Tip 5: Don’t forget electronic transactions.

Have you followed all of these tips and you’re still out of balance? Make sure you’ve accounted for all of the electronic items going in and out of your bank account. Items such as credit card fees, debit card purchases, and ACH deposits may not have been previously recorded. To learn the basics of reconciling accounts, view this Intuit QuickBooks How-To video tutorial: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/tutorials/reconcile-accounts/

As always, call Amatics CPA Group if you would prefer one of our bookkeeping specialists do the reconciling for you. After all, you need time to run your business too!