Reconciling Your Bank Account

Bank reconciliation is the process of matching your computer bank records with the statement
from your bank.
We recommend that you reconcile your bank accounts when you receive your statement from the bank. By reconciling regularly, you will not have too many transactions to check and you will
not have to make as many adjustments for possible interest charges or overdraft payments.
There are two ways to reconcile your bank accounts. You can use e-Banking Or, as described in this section, you can manually reconcile your bank accounts. Regardless of which method you choose, bank reconciliation is a formal check of the bank records you keep against the bank statement(s) you receive from the financial organisation(s) you deal with.

You don’t have to reconcile any of your bank accounts if you don’t want to. However, it is good
practise to do so ensuring:
Your bank records are accurate and complete.
Charges and/or interest applied to your account are identified and adjustments made to account for these.
Erroneous transactions are identified which can then be disputed with the financial organisation you deal with.
Missing transactions can be added to your bank records to bring them up to date.

To reconcile your bank statement

Select Bank > Reconcile Account.
The Statement Summary window appears.

Select the bank you want to reconcile from the drop-down list.
Use the Statement Summary window to record information shown on your bank
statement. You can enter the following statement information:
Statement Reference If you want to maintain a history of bank reconciliations, enter a statement reference. To associate the reconciliation to your bank statement, enter the reference shown on your bank statement.
Statement (End) Date The current system date appears. You can change this date to the date on your bank statement so that only those transactions up to and including the date are available for reconciliation. The date cannot be blank.
Ending Balance If this is the first time the bank account is to be reconciled the
account’s opening balance is displayed, otherwise the reconciled balance from the previous reconciliation is displayed. Enter the balance shown on your bank statement.
If your account is overdrawn, to record a negative amount place a minus (-) at the beginning of the value.

Interest Earned Amount Amount: If your bank statement shows interest earned, enter the amount. The amount is committed to the bank account when transactions are reconciled and appears as a bank receipt. Enter the date the interest was applied to your account. NC: From the drop-down list, select a nominal account you want to post the interest to.

Account Charges: If any bank charges appear on your statement, enter an amount for charges. The amount is committed to the bank account when reconciliation is reconciled and
appears as a bank payment. This amount is added to the reconciliation as a fixed amount, which cannot be split into separate charges. If you have several charges you want to record separately,
add them using an adjustment (explained later). Enter the date the charges were applied to your account. From the drop-down list, select a nominal account you want to post the charge to. When you have entered your statement information, click OK. The Bank Reconciliation window appears.

Transactions up to and including the 'Statement (End) Date' are displayed. An opening balance appears in the 'Matched Against Statement' area of the window. If this is the first time the bank account is to be reconciled the account’s opening balance appears, otherwise the reconciled balance from the previous reconciliation appears. It is displayed for information purposes only, it cannot be removed or changed. Any account charges or interest earned that have been recorded using the Statement Summary window appear in the 'Matched Against Statement' area of the window. They cannot be moved into the 'Unmatched items' area. To remove them click Edit, then set the charge/interest amount to zero on the displayed Statement Summary window and click OK. Confirm this action by clicking OK when prompted. Depending on your Sage 50 Accounts settings, transactions may be grouped and displayed as one transaction. Grouped transactions are indicated by the letter 'Y' in the 'Grouped' column. See hints and tips at the end of this section that explain how to view this column.

Work through your bank statement one line at a time. Match a transaction on your bank statement to a transaction in the 'Unmatched items' area. Select the item to be matched (left-click mouse button - the line becomes highlighted) then click Match Transaction. As you move transactions the 'Matched Balance' and 'Difference' values change automatically.

Transactions are positioned in the 'Matched Against Statement' area in the order in which they are moved into the area. Any transaction within this area that is associated with a negative bank balance appears red.
To move a transaction from 'Matched Against Statement' to 'Unmatched items', select the transaction (left-click mouse button) then click Unmatch Transaction.

To add a transaction to your bank records (bank charge, interest earned, payment or
receipt) click Add Adjustment.
Do not use an adjustment to add transactions that affect your customer or supplier accounts, for example, BACS receipts from customers, Direct Debit or Standing Orders to suppliers. You must use the Customer Receipt or Supplier Payment facilities to record such transactions. Caution: You cannot delete adjustments from the reconciliation.

Posted in: bank