Reconcile Bank Accounts in Quickbooks 2019

Watch the QuickBooks 2019 video tutorial below. Find out how to reconcile bank accounts. And learn about the other accounts that you can reconcile.

We are all the way down to the last section in module seven. We’ve been talking about different activities as far as banking that QuickBooks has.

But now, I want to talk to you about reconciling. How do you make sure that what you have in QuickBooks matches what the bank has? And that’s the importance.

At least reconcile your checkbook, if you don’t reconcile anything else. Let me show you how the reconcile feature is done in QuickBooks.

Keep in mind that, the purpose of reconciling is to make sure that your books match what the bank says. There will be times when you’ve made a mistake, and there will be times when the bank may have made a mistake. And you want to make sure that you’re keeping up with that.

Also, we’re going to be reconciling our checking account, but you’re going to see that you can reconcile your credit cards, your loans. You’ll see the whole list of things you can reconcile.

Once you get your statement at the end of the month, you’ll want to come here and click the Reconcile option on your desktop.

The first thing it asks you to do is pick the account you’d like to reconcile. This is what I was just saying about all the different types of accounts you could reconcile. We’re going to reconcile our checking.

The next thing is the statement date. You’ll want to make sure this date matches the date that you have on the bank statement you’re looking at. If it’s off by a few days, just go ahead and change it so they match.

The next thing you’ll see is the beginning balance. That number should be on your bank statement. If you balanced last month, last month’s ending number should be this month’s beginning number.

If you know your balanced last month, but (this month) this number is different, you can go down here to this Locate Discrepancies. And then, run a report that will show you everything you changed since you last reconciled.

You may have to end up adding some things you deleted back in or making a few changes before you get back to this number.

You do have to type in the ending balance. And that will come from your bank statement. In this case, let’s say it’s $137,400.74. If you have any service charges, you would enter those here. If you had any interest, you would enter that here.

The account for your service charges will be Bank Service Charges. If you have any interest, you should have an account that will say Interest Income and you would put that in there. Make sure you’re also using the class feature and using the correct item from the list.

I’m going to hit Continue and the next thing you’re going to see is a list of everything that has not cleared. On the left, will be any checks or payments or things that came out of the bank account. On the right, will be any deposits or credits to the bank account.

The idea is that you look on your bank statement, and if you see it there, check it off. If you don’t see it, don’t check it because it may clear next month.

But, keep your eye out for things that are really old. If this happens to be December and you’ve got something hanging out here, from July of last year, you need to investigate and figure out why.

If you happen to be here, and you’d like to open one of these transactions, just double click on it. You’ll go right to that transaction. If it happens to be the wrong amount, for example, just make the change and save it at the bottom. And when you come back into the reconcile window it will be changed.

I’m going to go ahead and check off all the deposits except the bottom one. Now, it doesn’t matter if you do deposits first or checks, just do one or the other and get in your own little groove for doing this.

I’ve checked off all my deposits. If you notice at the bottom left, it tells me that I have 15 deposits that total this amount of money. This should match what your bank statement says. If it does and later you’re out of balance, you know it’s not on this side.

Now, you’re going to do the same thing over here on the side with the checks. You’re just going to go down the list and check off everything that cleared. And, what you’ll want to make sure that you do is, if you’re out of balance, go back and see exactly what you may have checked or unchecked that would throw you out.

Now, here’s how you know you’re out of balance. If you look at the bottom right-hand corner, you’ll see the difference. In this case is $710.00. So obviously, a few of these have not yet cleared.

When I go back and look, I’ll see that this one, did not clear. And this one did not clear! Now, that I’ve done that if I check at the bottom again my difference is now zero. That’s how I know that I am reconciled or balanced.

When you’re done make sure you click Reconcile Now and it’s going to pop up and tell you, “Congratulations you’re balanced,” and it gives you a choice to print a few of these reports.

You do not have to print them. But, if you ever had to rebuild your company file for some reason you would sure be glad you had some of these. I want to show you what they look like. So, I’ll choose Both and Display.

This one here! Is what we call the Reconciliation Summary. And I’m going to close this little message here. You’ll notice that it just tells me that I had 13 checks and payments that cleared. And they totaled this amount of money.

I had 15 deposits. If I close this one, I’ll see the other report in the background, which is my reconciliation details. This shows every single transaction that made up. My total checks and payments. That’s all there is to reconciling.

Now, when I go back and look in the checkbook register. What you’re going to notice is that the ones that you just checked off will now have a checkmark here, in the register.

So, I told you earlier do not uncheck those or don’t put a checkmark in this column here (where there’s not one currently). Because each of those could throw out your reconciliation. That’s all there is to reconciling, and that’s all I want to tell you about different banking activities in QuickBooks.

We’re going to move over to module eight now, and talk about working with loans.

Cindy McGuckin

Cindy McGuckin is an IT trainer with over 20 years of experience. Cindy currently manages the IT Training Department at Trident Technical College, she's a Member of the Association of IT Professionals, Charleston, SC chapter and the Treasurer of the South Carolina Association of Continuing Higher Education.Cindy is a Microsoft Office and QuickBooks expert and her online courses have received hundreds of 5-star reviews. Her no-nonsense approach to teaching complicated topics makes her classes engaging and interesting.