Apple Mac2014 - Reconciling Your Accounts

QuickBooks for Mac 2014 User’s Guide 174
Reconciling your accounts
Reconciling may sound mysterious and scary, but it's really not. All it means is you check your QuickBooks records
with your bank or credit card statements to make sure they match.
Hey, upgraders—we've made a bunch of changes (we like to call them improvements) to Reconcile in QuickBooks
for Mac 2014.
Before you begin
Before you reconcile your accounts, check these things:
• Be sure you’re up-to-date on entering your transactions in QuickBooks. You know that check you wrote last week
for your rent but didn’t enter in QuickBooks? Or the bills you paid but haven’t marked them as paid in
QuickBooks? Do that now. Enter all transactions that haven’t cleared or shown up on previous bank statements.
• The very first time you reconcile, check the Opening Balance transaction on your bank accounts in your Chart
of Accounts. They should reflect the amount that was actually in your account when you began using
QuickBooks. If it doesn’t you can fix this by:
o In your Chart of Accounts, open the register for the account (double-click the account name) and change
the Opening Balance transaction to match the ending balance from the last bank statement you received
before you started using QuickBooks.
o Or, you can create an opening balance adjustment at the end of your first reconciliation. We’ll get to this
later.
o After your first reconciliation, the Opening Balance should match the Ending Balance from your previous
Reconciliation report.
Step 1: Choose the account you want to reconcile
1 If you use online banking in QuickBooks, download your account statement. If you don't use online
banking, either find your paper bank or account statement or access your online statement.
Tip: It might be easier to print out your online account statement so you don't have to keep
switching screens on your computer.
2 In QuickBooks, choose Banking > Reconcile. The Begin Reconcile window appears.
3 In the Account to Reconcile field, choose the account you want to reconcile.
4 Enter the statement date from your account statement in the Statement Date field.
5 Enter the ending balance on your account statement into the Ending Balance field.
6 If your bank or credit card company charges you a monthly service charge or fee, enter the amount
of that fee into the Service Charge Amount field. Enter the date your bank charged you this fee, the
QuickBooks account you want this fee charged to.
Tip: If you use Classes to categorize your expenses, choose the Class you associate with this fee.