QuickBooks for Mac 2014 User’s Guide 178
Reconciling isn’t hard, but it doesn’t always go smoothly. So what do you do? First off, don’t panic. Then, keep
reading.
Note: Though some of the places that send you statements may not technically be banks, I’m just going to use
the term “bank” because it’s a nice, short word instead of “financial institution.”
What to look for
So you have a difference in the balance for the account in QuickBooks and your bank statement. It’s time to go
hunt down the mistake. What do you look for to find the mistakes? Here are some common reconciling errors:
1 You mistakenly cleared transactions that weren’t on your statement.
2 You didn’t mark all the transactions shown on your statement.
3 You didn’t notice an incorrect dollar amount on one or more items.
4 You’re missing transactions in your QuickBooks records that appear on the statement.
5 You have not yet entered service charge or interest transactions that are included on your bank
statement. Or perhaps you entered these items in the Reconcile window, but they’re already listed
among the transactions in the window.
Sometimes you may find it easier to find these errors in printouts rather than on your screen. You can run a report,
like the Transaction Detail report, and filter the report for the account you’re reconciling and for cleared or
uncleared transactions (whichever you’re researching). You can also filter for transaction types, such as checks,
deposits, or payments. This report may be easier to look at than your register, where transaction types are mixed.
You can also run an Audit Trail report to look for modified or deleted transactions.
Tips for finding problems
Sometimes something as simple as counting items or checking your totals can lead you to the culprit transaction
that’s causing your reconciling problems. Here are some tips:
• Count the number of checks and withdrawals on your bank statement. Compare that with the number of these
transactions in the Reconcile window. Do the same for deposits. If you don’t have the same number of these
transactions in QuickBooks as your bank statement, you may have found your problem. Check to see if you:
o Missed recording a transaction in QuickBooks
o Missed marking an item as cleared
o Mistakenly marked an item as cleared
o Entered a transaction twice
o Entered a deposit as a payment or a payment as a deposit
• Click the top of the Date column to sort your transactions by date (or click another column to sort your
transactions some other way). This can make it much easier to find missing transactions or to match a
transaction that’s got an incorrect amount.
• Check to see if the bank summarized your transactions. The bank may summarize transactions that you’ve
listed separately in your register. For example, if you made several deposits on a single day, the bank might
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