Bank Reconciliation: Purpose, Example, Process

Once you’ve completed the balance as per the bank, you’ll then need to work out the balance as per the cash book. At times, you might give standing instructions to your bank to make payments regularly on specific days to third parties, such as insurance premiums, telephone bills, rent, sales taxes, etc. Give your accountant direct access to your books so she can find the reports and information she needs when questions arise. Create a separate login for your accountant to make it easy for her to work with you. You can exchange messages and share documents directly inside QuickBooks, too. Below, we delve into a detailed explanation of the account reconciliation process within QuickBooks.

In addition, there may be cases where the bank has not cleared the checks, however, the checks have been deposited by your business. Banks take time in clearing checks, so the bank needs to add back the check’s amount to the bank balance. Such errors are committed while recording the transactions in the cash book, so the balance as per the cash book will differ from the passbook.

You need to determine the underlying reasons responsible for any mismatch between holding more than 50% of shares ownership balance as per cash book and passbook before you record such changes in your books of accounts. Such information is not available to your business immediately, so you record no entry in the business’ cash book for the above items. You will know about this only when you receive the bank statement at the end of the month. As a result, your balance as per the passbook would be less than the balance as per the cash book. In this instance, your bank has recorded the receipts in your business account at the bank, while you haven’t recorded this transaction in your cash book. As a result, the balance shown in the bank passbook would be more than the balance shown in your company’s cash book.

Step 4: Compare your bank statement and QuickBooks

Reconciling a bank statement is an important step to ensuring the accuracy of your financial data. To reconcile bank statements, carefully match transactions on the bank statement to the transactions in your accounting records. With QuickBooks, you can easily reconcile bank accounts to ensure that the dollars you record are consistent with the dollars reported by the bank. In the absence of proper bank reconciliation, the cash balances in your bank accounts could be much lower than expected, which may result in bounced checks or overdraft fees.

Step 1: Review your opening balance

These charges won’t be recorded by your business until your bank provides you with the bank statement at the end of every month. There are a few reasons your QuickBooks data may not match your account statements, including bank service charges, checks that haven’t cleared, and transactions that haven’t been entered in QuickBooks yet. If your beginning balance in your accounting software isn’t correct, the bank account won’t reconcile.

Reconciling Bank Accounts in QuickBooks

1. Before you start with reconciliation, make sure to back up your company file.
2. As a result, your balance as per the passbook would be less than the balance as per the cash book.
3. A monthly reconciliation helps to catch and identify any unusual transactions that might be caused by fraud or accounting errors, especially if your business uses more than one bank account.
4. QuickBooks processes the payment and transfers the money to your bank account.
5. You need to determine the underlying reasons responsible for any mismatch between balance as per cash book and passbook before you record such changes in your books of accounts.

Likewise, ‘credit balance as per cash book’ is the same as ‘debit balance as per passbook’ means the withdrawals made by a company from a bank account exceed deposits made. The balance recorded in the passbook or the bank statement must match the balance reflected in the customer’s cash book. It is up to you, the customer, to reconcile the cash book with the bank statement and report any errors to the bank. Nowadays, all deposits and withdrawals undertaken by a customer are recorded by both the bank and the customer. The bank records all transactions in a bank statement, also known as passbook, while the customer records all their bank transactions in a cash book. Remember that transactions that aren’t accounted for in your bank statement won’t be as obvious as bank-only transactions.

It’s recommended to reconcile your checking, savings, and credit card accounts every month. Once you get your bank statements, compare the list of transactions with what you entered into QuickBooks. If everything matches, you know your accounts are balanced and accurate. Before you reconcile your bank account, you’ll need to ensure that you’ve recorded all transactions from your business until the date of your bank statement.

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This can happen if you’re reconciling an account for the first time or if it wasn’t properly reconciled last month. Book transactions are transactions that have been recorded on your books but haven’t cleared the bank. As a small business, you may find yourself paying vendors and creditors by issuing check payments. There are bank-only transactions that your company’s accounting records most likely don’t account for. These transactions include interest income, bank deposits, and bank fees.

Therefore, such adjustment procedures help in determining the balance as per the bank that will go into the balance sheet. Not-sufficient funds (NSF) refers to a situation when your bank does not honour a check, because the current account, on which the check is drawn, has insufficient funds. We know that taking hours to find amounts that are off by a few pennies doesn’t make sense. In QuickBooks, you have the option to make an adjusting entry if the difference isn’t zero when you are finished reconciling. However, adjusting entries should be made only as a last resort for small amounts.