Can Bank Feeds Fix My Monthly Reconciliation?

Reconciliation is an important part of the accounting process for ensuring the accuracy of your figures. It’s very easy for a business to imagine they have spent a certain amount of money only for the bank to reflect a very different story.

For years, the manual method of reconciliation has been used, where accountants or business owners look through the transactions reported by the bank and compare them to their own notes and numbers. This gets the job done but can be a long and laborious process – and of course, the longer it takes, the more chance there is for mistakes to slip in.

​Even for monthly account reconciliations there may be hundreds of transactions to check and cross-reference, and the dates the business records payments may not necessarily match the dates the bank uses.

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​With digital tools such as QuickBooks Online now being available, there’s a simpler way to keep on top of your business finances.

Bank Feeds allow the software to connect directly to the financial institution where your accounts are held, giving the ability to download transactions right into the software. QuickBooks will try to match any transactions with the user-entered data automatically, effectively giving you semi-automatic reconciliation.

Why only semi? Because some transactions may not match. This may be because they were recorded incorrectly, didn’t have tax applied, were an unexpected expense, and so on. By highlighting the transactions that don’t match, Bank Feeds make the process of reconciliation much easier.
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You can compare unmatched transactions from both your data and the Bank Feed and link the ones that do indeed match – if it’s something as simple as a transaction date being incorrect by more than a few days, you’ll be able to spot it easily.

For other transactions that don’t match, you can investigate them further and take the appropriate action. Perhaps the name of the payee was recorded incorrectly, or a last-minute change in plan meant a transaction needed to change. It may be that a transaction is so new that it’s only been recorded in one system and not the other – but it’s much easier to find when the majority of the Bank Feed reconciliation process is automated.

Automation reduces the chances of mistakes being made during reconciliation and reduces the time needed to complete the task. Bank Feeds offer improved accounting accuracy and free up time to work productively outside of the reconciliation process.

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Bookkeep & Prosper

Here at Bookkeep & Prosper we specialize in remote digital bookkeeping with services starting at $315 per month. Response time is guaranteed with 36 hours or the next month of service is free. We take cyber security seriously using military grade systems for anti-virus, data encryption, and password management. Each month after closing out your books we will review the financial statements including the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows so that you have a clear view of how your business is performing. If you do not yet have budget and budget review as a standard part of your business then we will work to create a budget over the course of the first year of service.

If you are reading this article then you want to get serious about your books. Why not start today by scheduling an introductory phone call with me, Conner Schryver, and see if Bookkeep & Prosper is a good fit for your company.

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