Background

The Bank Reconciliation feature in AccountEdge allows you to dynamically create AccountEdge Bank Register transactions to match transactions in a bank statement, and provides the ability to establish rules so similar transactions in future statements will be recognized and matched to dynamically-created Bank Register transactions.

If you are doing your first bank reconciliation you may want to take a look at the article Initial Bank Reconciliation.

Manual Bank Reconciliation

To reconcile your bank (or credit card) account:

1. Click the Reconcile Accounts button in the Banking Command Center
2. At the top of the window, indicate the account you wish to reconcile
3. In the New Statement Balance field, enter the closing balance from your bank statement
4. In the Bank Statement Date field, enter the closing date from your bank statement, and press tab key on your keyboard; only unreconciled transactions dated on or before that date will appear
5. For each entry on your bank statement, select the corresponding Bank Register transaction by placing a check mark to the left of the transaction; the selected line is highlighted and the amounts in the Calculated Statement Balance and Out of Balance fields are updated
6. If there are entries on the statement that do not appear in the Reconcile Accounts window, you'll need to manually enter these transactions into the Bank Register
   • Click the Bank Entry button
7. Click Reconcile; a window will indicate whether the account is reconciled or you are out of balance
   • If your account is reconciled, you have the option of printing a Reconciliation report by clicking Print. Once the report is printed, the Reconcile Accounts window reappears. Click Reconcile again to complete the reconciliation process. If you don't want to print the report, click Reconcile
   • If your account is out of balance, the window will indicate the amount by which your account is out of balance, and will provide you with some reasons why the account might be out of balance

Reconciling From a Downloaded Bank Statement file

Before you can import your bank or credit card statement, you need to download the statement file from your bank. Your bank's website should provide instructions on how to download this file. AccountEdge has ability to import OFX, QFX, QIF, OFC and QBO format files.

Check Importing Bank Statements for additional information.

1. Click the Reconcile Accounts button in the Banking Command Center
2. At the top of the window, indicate the account you wish to reconcile
3. In the New Statement Balance field, enter the closing balance from your bank statement
4. In the Bank Statement Date field, enter the closing date from your bank statement, and press tab key on your keyboard; only unreconciled transactions dated on or before that date will appear
   1. Click Bank Statement button
   2. Click Import Statement
   3. Navigate to and select the downloaded bank statement
   4. Click OK in the Import Bank Statement Summary window. Statement transactions are automatically matched with the transactions in your Bank Register using the check number, date, and amount as the criteria for matching withdrawals and deposits
   5. If all your transactions match, that's it, click Done; these transactions will be marked as cleared in the Reconcile Accounts window
   6. If there are unmatched transactions, they will be displayed in the top, Unmatched Transactions window
   7. Handle the unmatched transactions
      • If you want to match a transaction, select the transaction and click Match Transaction. In the Match Transaction window, select the transaction that you want to match with the statement transaction, and click Match. The transaction will be marked as cleared
      • If you want to add a corresponding Bank Register transaction, select the transaction and click Add. Indicate an account for the transaction, and click Save. If you have Rule Reminder check marked, the Create Rule window will open; complete the information to establish a rule for similar statement transactions so they will automatically match dynamically-created Bank Register transactions
      • If you have Rule Reminder check marked, and canceled out of the Rule window, you will not be reminded to create a rule if you retry the process; the transaction will be added without a rule; you'll need to create a rule manually (if desired)
   8. Repeat the above step for each transaction
   9. When all unmatched transactions are addressed, click Done
   10. Click Reconcile; a window will indicate whether the account is reconciled or you are out of balance
       • If your account is reconciled, you have the option of printing a Reconciliation report by clicking Print. Once the report is printed, the Reconcile Accounts window reappears. Click Reconcile again to complete the reconciliation process. If you don't want to print the report, click Reconcile
       • If your account is out of balance, the window will indicate the amount by which your account is out of balance, and will provide you with some reasons why the account might be out of balance

Bank Statement Rules

Bank Statement rules make it so that when you import your bank statement you do not have to constantly allocate the same types of transactions to accounts and cards.

Rules are based on the Bank Payee field on a bank statement import. This means that when creating rules, it tends to make more sense to have the rule match on the least amount of information possible. In the instance below you will see that this rule is based on the payee "Acme Sales". Then, any time you import a bank statement that has a payee containing Acme Sales it will be assigned to the Acme Sales Inc. card, the 4-3400 income account, the Job B101, and is split between the Sales and Mktg Departments without having to go through and re-assign these over and over.

Reconciliations Tips

In the Unmatched Transaction section, you can select an unmatched transaction and either:

1. Clear the transaction if the transaction has already been reconciled in your AccountEdge Bank Register
2. Delete if the transaction is a duplicate
3. Use Add to dynamically create AccountEdge Bank Register transactions that match statement transactions
4. Match the statement transaction to a previously recorded transaction in your AccountEdge Bank Register
5. Split to assign more than one account to the transaction

If you attempt to reconcile and the account is out of balance

1. Check the following:
   • Did you type the correct figure in the New Statement Balance field? You need to type the closing balance from your bank statement, not the opening balance
   • Did you type the correct date (that of the closing balance from your bank statement) in the Bank Statement Date field? An incorrect date may prevent some transactions from appearing in the list
   • Did you select all the transactions that appear on the bank statement? If not, some transactions might not have been accounted for in the reconciled balance
   • Did you select, by mistake, a transaction that didn’t appear on your bank statement? If yes, you need to deselect this transaction
   • Did you record all bank charges and bank interest entries that appear on the bank statement? If not, you need to record them using the Bank and Deposit Adjustments window and select them for reconciliation
2. Repeat the reconciliation procedure. If your account is still out of balance, then you may have deleted a transaction that has been reconciled previously; check Bank Reconciliation Out of Balance for additional help

Other Resources

More information on downloading bank statements is available on the Downloading Bank Statements page.

To use the bank reconciliation process, you would have to have done an initial bank reconciliation. More details are available on the Initial Bank Reconciliation page.

This video has further information on how you can import the bank statement: