Bank reconciliation - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Sammy76 · Senior Member

Bank reconciliation

RobH · Expert

Are they cheques? Have they been presented. Maybe the cheques were cancelled or put through that account in error when they were paid by another means, likewise if they are receipts. You really need to do a little more delving first.

Sammy76 · Senior Member

One is a bank payment for office supplies and the other is a transfer to the credit card. They are on the bank statement and a printed reconciliation so I was able to find them on the audit trail which is when I found the original, reconciled, transactions have been deleted. No idea if the previous bookkeeper (who is unavailable) has deleted them or if it's something the accountant had done, but the replacement transactions are preventing my reconciliation from balancing. All reconciliations have been done though up till now.

Stardoe · Guru

I would be inclined to re-instate the old transactions as they were, if you are never going to be able to find out why they were deleted and replaced. If it is obvious that these replacements are wrong. The other thing you could do would be to post a balancing transaction to the suspense account, make a note of it and let the accountants deal with it at year end.

ak · Member

I am reconciling my monthly statement and have a difference of 137.57. I have informed our accountant and they have advised to pass to suspend account, I am unsure how this is done?

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

AK.. you need to post a bank payment or bank receipt, for this amount - whichever way it needs to go to make it balance. The transaction will be T9 and posted to 9998

Stardoe · Guru

Or you could do a journal to debit/credit the bank nominal and debit/credit the suspense account

EPF_Solutions · Senior Member

Suspense accounts are evil places where stuff is dumped to be forgotten about and written off! That £137.57 could be made up of big receipts and payments that almost cancel each other out, but could have a big impact on the accounts. When I were a lad, I remember having to take some big printouts home (on paid overtime!) to wade through many transactions to trace a difference. An unreconciled bank statement just wasn't allowed! It's much easy now when you can dump everything into a spreadsheet and move stuff around, highlight bits, hide rows you've agreed etc.

ak · Member

I am doing a bank payment so it balances, but what do I put in as ref: and N/C?

Sammy76 · Senior Member

On advise from my boss I created a bank payment and bank receipt, posted to suspense so I could reconcile, leaving the payment it relates to unreconciled. It's something the accountant has done so they can deal with it, which seems a cop out. but they must have had their reasons.

ak · Member

think I got it thanks

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

I don't advise journals, as they harder to fix if you make a mistake ;o)

If you post your transaction, and in that moment, you realise it was wrong, you can delete it or amend it.

Have you been using the reconcile function on the bank? This may help you pinpoint the exact make up of the £137. Your accountant may tick up the bank statements to Sage to work it out, and that might be costly dependant on the volume of transactions. Some accountant might just write it off tho. Depends.

-- Edited by FoxAccountancyServices on Thursday 1st of May 2014 04:30:06 PM

ak · Member

Hi, I am trying to reconcile 2 months Statement, I have done for March, but when I go back to reconcile to do April I cant enter into it?

ak · Member

Statement summary comes up

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

Hi AK

The statement summary is where you tell Sage the details of the bank statement you are trying to reconcile.

So for April, you would put the sheet number (or just put 30.04.14 as a reference). You would enter the closing balance, and you would enter the last day of the bank statement you are trying to reconcile - 30.04.14.

I usually post bank charges through the "bank payment" page, but you may choose to enter them in the statement summary page.

Either way, once you have the information in the summary page, you click ok and that takes you into the reconciliation page where, like with March, you can double click your entries as they appear on the statement, until you get the NIL difference.

Do not reconcile until you have NIL difference - or it defeats the purpose!

I always think it is best to reoncile one sheet at a time, instead of a whole month of numerous sheets

EPF_Solutions · Senior Member

If a bank reconciliation was complicated or messy, I used to export the bank transactions from Sage and put them into a spreadsheet. Then I could highlight rows, hide rows, sort rows and all sorts of things to help me work it out. Before doing any sorting, I'd fill a column with sequential numbers to use to sort it back into the original order. I'd also save versions that appeared to be right so far, so I could go back to them if I got in a mess later on.

I also worked on photocopies of the bank statement that I could cover in various colours of ink and highlight pen, and if it got in a total mess I could start again on another copy.

Only when I'd got it right and posted the corrections would I reconcile it in Sage, and tick items off on the original statement.

I agree about doing one sheet at a time if possible.

I've done some lovely ones that were great fun, and a few that were very frustrating!