.png){kind=logo}
.jpg)
Bank Reconciliation Opening Balance Discrepancy Warning in QuickBooks Online
You have opened your Bank Reconciliation in QuickBooks Online and received this terrifying warning:
Your account isn’t ready to reconcile yet. Your beginning balance is off by $$$$$.
What to do!
Don’t panic! It is not as bad as it looks! Something has changed since you completed your last reconciliation.
Watch the video below and I will show you how to correct the opening balance so you can move on with your reconciliations!
If you are new to QuickBooks Online, or are not sure how to most effectively work with the bank feed check out the links below.
— Duplicated Transactions
— Other Resources
Still need help?
Check this out.
Bank Reconciliation Opening Balance Discrepancy Warning in QuickBooks Online
If something has changed since you completed your last reconciliation, watch on. I will show you how to correct the opening balance so you can move on with your reconciliations.
Let's go!Still need help?
Book a session! We can work together to solve your specific QuickBooks Online questions.
Let's go!Video transcript:
Hi, Kerry here from My Cloud Bookkeeping. Have you opened up the reconciliation page, all set to do your reconciliations and had this big scary message pop up? I think this is one of the most common reasons that people reach out to me, especially in a panic. And while this is a warning, you do need to pay attention to, the warning doesn't need to be quite so severe. And assuming what you've done is correct something on a prior reconciliation, which is normally the case; it's actually quite easy to fix this. So, grab your bank statements, open up your reconciliation and let's get this sorted out.
Okay, so the first thing we want to do is have a look here and see what was the date of the last statement that we reconciled and then have a look and see what that beginning balance is because obviously it's not going to be $4,700 because we have this warning up here. So, as a reminder, all that's happened most likely is that we've changed something; for some reason we may have mis allocated a payment, so we've applied it to the correct vendor. We might have had a duplicated transaction and got rid of the wrong one, or got rid of the one we'd reconciled and kept the correct one. But this warning is nowhere near as serious as it looks. Have a look at what the ending balance is on January 3s, so if it's not this, have a look at the actual statement. And in this case, the ending balance at January 31st was $4,875.00. And we're just going to enter back in this date. So what we are doing now is we're getting our beginning balance to be correct for the next month, by correcting this, your account isn ready to reconcile beginning balance error.
So let's have a look and see what happens now when we click start reconciling. We pop in here, we see we still have our difference by a $175 and we have the amount that we've correctly changed to whatever's showing up here. So we simply check this, the difference goes away and we click finish now. We're done. And when we come back to here, our last statement ending date is $4,875, the scary warning's gone away. If you pop up here to the history for reconciliations, you will see that you do have two reconciliations showing up for the same day. One shows that there was a change made to it, and then the next one's all nice and clean. And now you're ready, you can go ahead and you can reconcile the next month. So if we pop into here, you'll help pull out your February statement, the beginning balance will be $4,875, and you're ready to go.
So if you have a lot of transactions showing up after you've completed your reconciliation; that is something that you do need to look at. That’s separate to the warning; that warning is usually only for if you've changed something after reconciliation has been completed. And if you've just put it right back in, then what we went through would just work. But if you've got a lot of things showing up after reach reconciliation, it's really important you investigate those. Once you reconcile, the only things that should still be showing on that reconciliation page are items that are, for example, a check you've mailed out that's going to be cleared the following month.
So if you're having troubles with that, reach out, I've got a couple of courses, there are a bunch of other videos, because if you've got items recorded that are not clearing, then your results are wrong, and probably your bank balance is wrong too. Okay, so if this video was useful, click like, subscribe to my channel, and I hope to see you again soon.
Cheers
Video transcript:
Hi, Kerry here from My Cloud Bookkeeping. Have you opened up the reconciliation page, all set to do your reconciliations and had this big scary message pop up? I think this is one of the most common reasons that people reach out to me, especially in a panic. And while this is a warning, you do need to pay attention to, the warning doesn't need to be quite so severe. And assuming what you've done is correct something on a prior reconciliation, which is normally the case; it's actually quite easy to fix this. So, grab your bank statements, open up your reconciliation and let's get this sorted out.
Okay, so the first thing we want to do is have a look here and see what was the date of the last statement that we reconciled and then have a look and see what that beginning balance is because obviously it's not going to be $4,700 because we have this warning up here. So, as a reminder, all that's happened most likely is that we've changed something; for some reason we may have mis allocated a payment, so we've applied it to the correct vendor. We might have had a duplicated transaction and got rid of the wrong one, or got rid of the one we'd reconciled and kept the correct one. But this warning is nowhere near as serious as it looks. Have a look at what the ending balance is on January 3s, so if it's not this, have a look at the actual statement. And in this case, the ending balance at January 31st was $4,875.00. And we're just going to enter back in this date. So what we are doing now is we're getting our beginning balance to be correct for the next month, by correcting this, your account isn ready to reconcile beginning balance error.
So let's have a look and see what happens now when we click start reconciling. We pop in here, we see we still have our difference by a $175 and we have the amount that we've correctly changed to whatever's showing up here. So we simply check this, the difference goes away and we click finish now. We're done. And when we come back to here, our last statement ending date is $4,875, the scary warning's gone away. If you pop up here to the history for reconciliations, you will see that you do have two reconciliations showing up for the same day. One shows that there was a change made to it, and then the next one's all nice and clean. And now you're ready, you can go ahead and you can reconcile the next month. So if we pop into here, you'll help pull out your February statement, the beginning balance will be $4,875, and you're ready to go.
So if you have a lot of transactions showing up after you've completed your reconciliation; that is something that you do need to look at. That’s separate to the warning; that warning is usually only for if you've changed something after reconciliation has been completed. And if you've just put it right back in, then what we went through would just work. But if you've got a lot of things showing up after reach reconciliation, it's really important you investigate those. Once you reconcile, the only things that should still be showing on that reconciliation page are items that are, for example, a check you've mailed out that's going to be cleared the following month.
So if you're having troubles with that, reach out, I've got a couple of courses, there are a bunch of other videos, because if you've got items recorded that are not clearing, then your results are wrong, and probably your bank balance is wrong too. Okay, so if this video was useful, click like, subscribe to my channel, and I hope to see you again soon.
Cheers
Still need help?
Check this out.
Bank Reconciliation Opening Balance Discrepancy Warning in QuickBooks Online
If something has changed since you completed your last reconciliation, watch on. I will show you how to correct the opening balance so you can move on with your reconciliations.
Let's go!Still need help?
We have what you need. Check out our courses and free resources to get more help managing your finances.
Let's go!
