My Bank Reconciliation is out of balance

Click here for the Help file: Top 10 Tips for Out of Balance Bank Reconciliation

When your Bank Reconciliation will not balance with your Bank Statement, the first places to look are the Check Register and the Deposit Register. Among other uses, these reports are a tool to help you quickly identify a mistake you have made.

You will be looking to see if any offsetting entries were made against the same checking account into which they were deposited or out of which a check was written. Sometimes the bank account is used inadvertently instead of an Income or an Expense account. 

1. Note the Bank Reconciliation date and the earliest check date you are marking on the Bank Reconciliation
2. Go into Reports → Transactions → Check Register. Enter a Custom Date Range using the earliest check date written as the From Date and the Bank Reconciliation Date as the End Date.
3. Select the checking account you are trying to reconcile
4. Run the detailed report, not the summary report.
5. Use the 'View PDF' option. This option allows you to search the entire report at once instead of one page at a time. Make sure your pop-up blocker is turned off for your PSA site so your PDF file will open.
6. Click the Ctrl-F buttons to get the 'Find' prompt and enter A- in the find window. This should immediately find the checking account you are reconciling which begins with A-.
7. Click the 'Next' button to find another account on the report which also begins with A-. (see screenshot below)
8. If you do find an entry on the right-side column of the report which begins with A-, you have likely found your bank reconciliation culprit. Jot down the Check Number and amount and skip down to To Fix This Issue.
9. If the Amount doesn't match the amount by which your reconciliation is off, click the 'Next' button again. You may also need to look in the Deposit Register.
10. If you did not find items with 'A-' on the Check Register Report, go into Reports, Transactions, Deposit Register and then go to Step 3 and follow the same instructions you just followed for the Check Register Report.

The example below is a deposit register showing a mistake for deposit 132. Instead of using an Income Account when adding the deposit, the Bank Account was used. In effect, this adds the money to the Account through the deposit and takes it right back out again through the line item.

We recommend selecting View PDF when generating the report, then using Ctrl-F and entering the Account Number in the find field. You can expect the Account number to display at the top of the report. However, anytime you find the Bank Account Code in the right column under Account Code, (where you would expect to find and Income Account for the Deposit Register or an Expense Account for the Check Register) this is likely one of the issues causing the Bank Reconciliation to be Out of Balance with your Bank Statement.

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To fix this issue, you will unmark the Check or Deposit on the Bank Reconciliation (if you have already marked it) and submit.

If the deposit or the bill was dated in the current open accounting period:

If it is a deposit, go to the deposit and update the line item to an Income Account. The software will allow this as long as you are in the same accounting period in which the deposit was made.

If it is a check, that can be more complicated. If you have a delete button (depending on your user privileges), delete the check, update the bill, and use the Assign Check Number button in the bill to re-add the check number. If you do not have the delete button, you must contact someone in your organization who does have this privilege such as a church administrator or a Diocese's administrator and ask them to delete the check. 

Or- create a journal entry which Credits the cash account and Debits the Expense Account which should have been used in the first place. When the check is cleared on the Bank Statement, mark both the Psuedo Check and the Journal Entry.

If the deposit or the bill was dated prior to the current open accounting period:

If you cannot update the bill because it was created in a different accounting period:

• if you are part of a diocese, you must contact your diocese and ask them to open the period in which the bill was written.
• If you are not part of a diocese, you must email support and ask them to open the period in which the bill was written. 
• Once the period is open, follow the steps outlined above.

Once you have completed fixing the issue in your data, go back to the bank reconciliation. Mark the entries and close the bank reconciliation. If a closed period was re-opened, go into Ledger & Payables, Process, End of Month (or End of Year) and close the period.

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Updated January 25, 2024 14:16