How to reconcile a bank, credit card, or petty cash account

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Intro to reconciliation

To ensure that your books are accurate, it's important to reconcile your bank, credit card, and petty cash accounts.

• When you reconcile a bank or credit card account, you make sure that the beginning balance and each transaction in the account statement match what you have in QuickBooks.
• When you reconcile a petty cash account, you make sure that the beginning balance and each transaction in the petty cash log match what you have in QuickBooks.

The example below shows you how to reconcile a bank or credit card account.

Reconciling an account is also called balancing an account.

To reconcile a bank or credit card account:

1. Click the Gear icon > Reconcile.
2. Click the Account drop-down arrow and select the account you want to reconcile.
3. Click Reconcile Now.
4. Open your bank or credit card statement.
   If you haven't reconciled for a while

   Start with the oldest statement you have. The farther back you start, the more likely you are to uncover any errors and discrepancies that might exist. Then reconcile against each statement, one after the other, up to the most recent statement.

5. Check the Beginning Balance amount in QuickBooks against the statement's beginning balance.
6. If they don't match, click Cancel. Before you continue reconciling, find out why the beginning balance doesn't match and fix the problem.
7. Enter the following information from your statement.
   1. Statement ending date
   2. Ending balance
   3. Service charge
   4. Interest earned

   Service charge and interest fields may not appear. If they do appear but there are no amounts to enter, you can leave these fields blank.

8. Click OK.
9. On the bank statement, find the first transaction; then find and select the checkmark for the corresponding transaction in the Reconcile window. If this account is connected with your bank, transactions within the statement period are automatically selected.
10. Do this for each transaction on the bank statement until you have found and selected all of the transactions in the statement.

When the selected transactions match your bank statement, the difference at the bottom of the Reconcile window equals zero.

11. Keep the following in mind as you reconcile:
    • To help you find transactions, you can sort by column, change the order of columns, and resize column widths.
    • If a transaction is incorrect, click it to edit it in its transaction form.
    • If a transaction on your statement is not shown, click Create (+) to enter it now.
    • As you select each transaction, the number of selected (cleared) transactions is tallied at the bottom of the window.
12. If you're having trouble getting the difference to equal zero, you can:
    1. Make sure the statement information you entered when you started this reconciliation is accurate.
    2. Make sure QuickBooks has the same number of cleared transactions as the statement. For example, in a bank account, if your statement has 11 checks and payments and your QuickBooks number is higher, then you have selected too many check or payment transactions. If the QuickBooks number is less than the statement number, then you missed selecting one or more check or payment transactions.
    3. Make sure the amounts of the cleared transactions are the same as the statement.
13. If you're still having trouble getting the difference to equal zero, try these tips.
14. When the difference equals zero, click Finish Now.
15. If you are reconciling a credit card account, decide how you want to pay the bill. You can:
    • Write a check for the payment now and pay the balance due or any amount you want. You can also print the check later.
    • Enter a bill for payment later to better manage your cash flow Learn more

    • Leave the balance in the reconciled account. If you leave the balance, QuickBooks still marks the transactions you selected as reconciled.

16. To view the reconciliation report, find it in the list of reports and select it.
17. Click Print.

When you select a transaction's checkbox, you mark it as cleared (tentatively reconciled). When you finish a reconciliation, the cleared transactions become reconciled. In registers, cleared transaction have a C in the reconciliation status column and reconciled transactions have an R.