Bank Reconciliation Guide

Article ID: 460

Last updated: 13 Oct, 2009

Preparing Bank Reconciliation

Obtain the bank statement you will be using to reconcile this account with.
Fill out all pertinent information in your bank account’s screen (I.E. address, contact person, etc…)
Click on edit starting balance :
1. Place a date/amount into the running balance field. *NOTE* the running balance field will subsequently populate the Balance Date on the account page. They share the same value. This will be the date and amount from the bank statement you are using to calculate the running balance total on the account page. *NOTE* this allows you to control the financial information being taken into account with the running balance, I.E. you may have missing historical data that will end up throwing your numbers off and you can choose a good place to start. The running total will take all of the following into account for a given transaction:
  1. That is entered into that bank account
  2. Falls between the running start date and the current date
  3. Regardless of reconcile status (for this balance it does not matter if the transaction has been reconciled or not)
2. Place a date/amount into the reconciled balance field. The reconciled amount that displays on the main account page is identical to the running balance total, except that it takes into account only the transactions that have been marked as reconciled in the system. *NOTE* if a starting balance or starting date is not entered into the system, the reconciliation will not be able to derive an accurate running/reconciled balance.

Reconciling Transactions

To reconcile transactions, click on the Reconcile tab from within your bank account. You will be prompted to provide a date range to search for transactions (this can be as broad or narrow as you would like. I.E. 1 year or 1 month) Then choose what you would like to look for (Individual Transactions or Batches, depending on how data has been entered into the system) *NOTE* when searching by batch, standalone transactions (those not in a batch, or disbursements) will still appear in the search results as unique transactions.

Choose whether or not you would like to includepreviously reconciled transactions or transactions that exist before your start date that have not been reconciled yet. *NOTE* this can be useful when a disbursement has been made in July for example but did not clear until August

After you hit the Search button you will be presented with a list of transactions that meet your criteria. On each transaction you can:

Click View to confirm the details of that transaction
Click on the check box under R to confirm you have selected that transaction *Note* you can click on Select All or Unselect All to speed the process of choosing which transactions to reconcile.
The Amount column shows disbursements/negative amounts in parentheses ( ) and receipt/positive amounts regularly.

Next, compare the transactions on the results screen against the transactions on your bank statement. *Note* the balance of statement reflects the start and end date you specified when searching for transactions; this date range should mirror the bank statement you are reconciling against

Once you have confirmed which transactions can be reconciled (by comparing the list to your bank statement), the Balance of Statement matches the statement you are reconciling and the date of your Bank Statement, you then hit the reconcile button to reconcile these transactions as being cleared in the bank account. These transactions will no longer show when you search for transactions within this time period. *NOTE* unless you specify otherwise by checking Include Reconciled

At this point click “Save.” The reconciled amount will not update until you reload the page. After saving, you will need to reenter the Account to check the Reconciled Balance.

*NOTE* remember that the reconcile balance field bases its amount on the statement date assigned to the transaction when you reconcile it, not the date of the actual transaction

Confirming Totals & Running Reports

At this point the numbers next to “Reconciled” will have changed to match the transactions you have reconciled.

Once your totals have been confirmed, you can run the following reports by going to Filing Committee -> Select Your Committee -> Filing Committee Reports

Bank Reconciliation – Presents your bank reconciliation information in an easy to read PDF format
Outstanding Receipts – Will show you any un-reconciled receipts in the system
Outstanding Checks – Will show you any outstanding checks in the system
Disbursements – Will show you any outstanding disbursements in the system

Frequenty Asked Questions

Q. I’ve accidently reconciled one or more transactions, can I un-reconcile them?

A. Yes you can. When in the reconcile portion of the Account page, search for the transaction(s) that you wish to un-reconcile. This can be done by defining the date range, then checking off Include Reconciled. You will notice that the transactions are all checked off. Simple uncheck the transaction(s) you wish to un-reconcile and hit the Reconcile button. This will mark the transaction as un-reconciled in the system *NOTE* you can do this to all the transactions by hitting Unselect All

Q. My data was recently converted, and all my transactions are un-reconciled. What is the best way to start the reconciliation process?

A. Simply follow the steps outline, and remember that when reconciling your transactions you are doing it in the same date range as the statement. If you decide to simply reconcile all of your transactions in one action, you will assign a common statement date to each transaction which will throw off your reconciled balance.

For example, your data has transactions from 2006, but you wish you only have a reconciled total starting on 1/1/2009. You receive your data on 6/31/2009 and decide to reconcile all your transactions on that day (which will give each transaction a statement date of 6/31/2009). Your reconciled balance will now calculate your total based on every transaction in your system, as opposed to only those after 1/1/2009.

Q. I accidentally reconciled transactions with the wrong statement date and it is throwing off my numbers; how do I fix this?

A. No problem. Simply go to the reconcile portion of the Account page and search for the transactions you wish to change. (Put in the date range of the transactions and check off Include Reconciled) Select the transaction(s) you wish to change by checking off the check box to the left of the transaction, and then change the date of the statement to what you would like. When finished, hit the Reconcile button. This will change the statement date on the transactions which should correct the amount displayed. *NOTE* remember to save and reload this page so the total can recalculate based on the changes you just made

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Article ID: 460

Last updated: 13 Oct, 2009

Revision: 1

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