Reconciliation proves that your books agree with the bank's statement for a period, then locks that period so it cannot be changed by accident. It works the same way whether the account has a live feed, imports statements, or is kept by hand: you reconcile the account's ledger — every customer payment, bill payment, expense, transfer, deposit, journal and categorised bank line posted to it — against the statement.
#Starting
- Open the account and click Reconcile (or Resume reconciliation if a draft is already open — an account has one draft at a time).
- Enter the Statement ending date and the Statement ending balance from the bank's statement, and optionally a period start and a note.
- The Beginning balance is the ending balance of your previous reconciliation and cannot be edited. For the account's first reconciliation it is normally 0, so every entry since the account opened is covered. The form also shows the ledger balance today as a sanity check.
- Click Start reconciling.
#Working the session
The summary card shows Statement ending balance, Beginning balance, Cleared balance (beginning + ticked deposits − ticked payments) and the Difference, which turns green at zero. Underneath: the ledger balance at the statement date, how many entries are not yet on the statement, and the book-versus-bank check (ledger − uncleared should equal the statement).
Below is every entry on the account up to the statement date, with its Type (Expense, Customer payment, Bill payment, Transfer, Deposit, Bank line, Journal, Payroll…), number, payee and memo, and the amount as a Payment or a Deposit.
- Entries the bank feed already showed are ticked for you and marked Feed — a categorised or matched feed line, a transfer or deposit the feed echoed.
- Tick Cleared on every other entry that appears on the statement. Use the header checkbox to tick everything visible; filter with the search box, Payments / Deposits, and Uncleared only.
- Or click Import statement file and upload the bank's OFX, QFX, CSV, MT940 or CAMT.053 statement. Lines whose reference or amount and date match an entry are ticked for you; nothing new is created. The result panel lists the exceptions — Ambiguous, Already imported, On statement, not in books, In books, not on statement.
- When the Difference is zero a green The books match the statement banner appears.
An entry on the statement that is not in your books means something was never recorded: categorise the bank line in Pending review (or record the document), and it appears in the session. An entry in your books that never appears on the statement is outstanding — leave it unticked and it carries forward to the next reconciliation.
#Finishing
Click Finish reconciliation (disabled and labelled Off by 25.00 until it balances). The session becomes Completed, the account's Reconciled date moves to the statement date, bank lines up to that date are locked, and every ticked entry is protected: editing, voiding or deleting it from any module is refused until the reconciliation is undone. Discard draft abandons a session.
#Undoing
Only the most recent reconciliation can be undone. On the account click Undo last reconciliation (or Undo reconciliation on the completed session). It goes back to a draft with its entries still ticked and the lock moves back to the previous statement date. Make the correction, check the difference is zero, and finish it again. If a reconciled entry was changed after the fact, the next session shows a Beginning balance is off warning with the amount.
The Reconciliations tab on the account lists every session with its period, balances, entries cleared and status.