Bear in mind that all items that you clear must be dated in the month of the statement. If you have a deposit that was batched out on a date after the statement you are reconciling, it must be corrected. This can be done by selecting Options, View Deposit Detail, and marking appropriate items as Un-deposited (i.e., sending them back to the Customer Payment Register). In the CPR, re-batch these items with a date in the range of the bank statement. We will cover these exact steps, with screenshot examples, later in this document.
When you have all items entered, including bank fees and other service charges, you can begin the process of verifying if your Bank Statement is balanced to your Bank Rec. Go to Options, and select Reconcile Account. You will get a screen such as this one:
You will override in the ending balance field the ending balance for your bank statement. In the GL Period field, override to the period in which this bank statement will end. If you are in Next Year in your GL, the Current Year is N; if you are in the current year in the GL, the Current Year is Y. The End Date is the date of your bank statement. After Accepting this information, you will be brought back to the main Bank Rec screen. When the Difference amount on the lower, right-hand side of the screen is equal to zero, the first stage of your bank reconciliation is completed. (It is not recommended that you Reconcile Now until the Difference is zero to the GL as well.)
The 2nd stage of the process is confirming that the general ledger is also in balance with the bank statement. From the top toolbar, select Reconciliation Reports, then Reconciliation Recap. At the end of the report, you will see an ADJUSTED Bank Balance for Period 07 (7/31/2013) and an ADJUSTED General Ledger Balance for Period 07. The difference between these two figures should also equal zero before using the Reconcile Now feature.
There are several reasons why your Bank Rec may not be balanced to your GL:
1. Outstanding Un-deposited Funds. All transactions that occurred in that period’s time frame must be brought in to the Bank Rec from the Customer Payment Register(s).
2. Deposits Batched with Bad Date. Print your Customer Payment Register History, by deposit date, to Excel. (Understand that register date is the actual date the register was produced, you want to review the deposit date, which is the date the deposit will appear in the bank rec.)
If they are dated in the current month, but the CPR was batched on a date in the following month, then:
a. From the Bank Rec, locate the deposit and use Options, View Deposit Details. Then click on the item in the Deposit Screen and, from the Change Deposit Screen that appears next, send it to un-deposited.
b. Go back to the CPR and Edit the Deposit Date to the current month’s date. (Do the same for any applicable deposits.)
2. Mismatched Periods/Dates. Print to Excel the GL Account Detail Report for the Bank Rec account for that period, filter the headers row, and then sort by date.
3. See if any dates are in error. Mismatched period/date errors can be corrected with two journal entries: One to remove them from the incorrect period and another to post them in the correct period. (Occasionally you may need to print the following month and see if a current month’s date was posted to a period in the future.)
The GL Account Detail Report, # 2 (Date/Period/Special) can also be used. Print, to Excel, the report for the Bank Rec account with periods before and after the period in question (using the monthly date range) to locate entries posted to wrong past/future periods.