Bank Reconciliation

Match your books to your bank statement for accuracy.

Starting a Reconciliation

1. Go to Chart of Accounts
2. Click Reconcile next to your bank account
3. The start screen shows your last reconciliation date and its statement balance at the top, so you can confirm you're picking up right where the previous statement left off
4. Enter:
   • Statement Date: End date on your bank statement
   • New Statement Ending Balance: Balance shown on this statement
   • Interest Earned (optional): interest the bank paid you this period, with a dropdown to pick the income account
   • Bank Service Charges (optional): fees the bank charged this period, with a dropdown to pick the expense account
5. Click Start Reconciliation

Interest & Service Charges Up Front

Coming from QuickBooks? This screen works the way you're used to. Any interest or service-charge amount you enter on the start screen is recorded as a proper double-entry transaction and pre-cleared on the reconciliation - you won't need to add it as an adjustment later.

• Both fields default to $0.00 - leave them alone if your statement has neither
• BizBooks Pro remembers which income and expense accounts you chose and pre-selects them on your next reconciliation
• Spot a fee only after you've started? No problem - use Add Adjustment inside the reconciliation workspace, which does the same thing mid-session

Importing a PDF Statement (AI)

Instead of typing the balance and clearing each line yourself, hand the work to BizBooks Pro's AI:

1. On the start screen, drag the PDF statement from your bank onto the upload box (or click to choose a file)
2. Kantivo Core AI (powered by Claude from Anthropic) reads it, then populates the statement date and ending balance and records every transaction it finds
3. Click Begin - BizBooks Pro checks off the ledger entries that line up with the statement and recalculates the difference toward $0.00
4. Anything that couldn't be matched is listed so you can add or correct it

Matching Transactions

You'll see two lists:

• Deposits/Credits: Money coming in
• Checks/Debits: Money going out

For each transaction on your bank statement:

1. Find the matching transaction in BizBooks Pro
2. Click to mark it as Cleared
3. The "Difference" amount updates in real-time

Reading the Balance Boxes

The strip across the top of the reconciliation screen answers "where do I stand right now?" Read it left to right:

• Beginning Balance: everything already reconciled on this account before today. Tie it to the opening balance printed on your statement. On an account you've never reconciled it reads $0.00, which is correct.
• Statement Balance: the ending balance you keyed in (or the one the PDF reader pulled off your statement).
• Book Balance: what the account is worth in your ledger this second, cleared or not.
• Reconciled Balance: where the account lands once the items you've checked off are counted and the still-outstanding ones are set aside.
• Difference: statement minus reconciled. Drive it to $0.00 and the Complete button unlocks.

Selected vs. Outstanding Totals

Underneath the two lists sit two summary bars, and they answer different questions:

• Selected This Session (blue) totals only the lines you've checked off, split into deposits and credits on one side and checks and payments on the other, with the net beside them. Because the two sides are kept apart, you can tie each one straight to the deposit subtotal and the withdrawal subtotal your bank prints on the statement instead of hunting for a single combined figure.
• Outstanding (grey) totals what you have not checked off - the checks that haven't hit the bank yet and the deposits still in transit.

On a credit card or line of credit these boxes flip into "amount owed" wording - charges instead of payments, payments and credits instead of deposits - so every figure reads the way your card statement reads.

Handling Discrepancies

Missing Transactions

If a transaction appears on your statement but not in BizBooks:

1. Click Add Transaction
2. Enter the missing transaction
3. It will be marked as cleared automatically

Wrong Amounts

If amounts don't match:

1. Check for typos in your entry
2. Edit the transaction if needed
3. Or create an adjustment entry

Duplicate Transactions

If you have duplicates, void or delete the extra entry.

Completing Reconciliation

When the Difference shows $0.00:

1. Click Finish Reconciliation
2. All cleared transactions are locked
3. A reconciliation record is saved

Right after finishing, BizBooks Pro offers to print the reconciliation report described below.

Paying Off a Credit Card Straight From the Reconciliation

Reconciling a credit card almost always ends with money still owed on it — that closing statement balance is the bill. Rather than send you off to hunt for the payment screen, BizBooks Pro asks about it right there, because at that moment it already knows which card you reconciled, exactly how much is outstanding and what date the statement closed.

Finish a reconciliation on any Credit Card account that still carries a balance and a short prompt appears naming the card and the amount owed. You get three options:

• Write a Check Now — opens the check screen with the amount already entered and the card set as the account being paid. All that's left for you is the bank account it comes out of and the payee.
• Enter a Bill to Pay Later — creates a new bill dated to your statement date, with the card account and the amount filled in, so the payoff sits in accounts payable and gets settled on its due date like any other bill.
• Not Now — dismisses the prompt; nothing is recorded and you carry on as before.

The amount starts at the full statement balance but you can type over it, so making a partial payment works exactly the same way — change the figure before you save. The prompt is limited to credit card accounts with a genuine balance due; reconciling a checking or savings account finishes the way it always has, and a card you've already paid down to zero won't trigger it either.

Printing the Reconciliation Report

BizBooks Pro creates a QuickBooks-style reconciliation report for your files or your accountant. It shows the statement summary, the cleared balance and difference, and a line-by-line list of the cleared payments and deposits.

1. Say yes to the print prompt shown when a reconciliation completes, or
2. Go to Reconciliation History and click Print on any earlier session to regenerate its report whenever you need it

Why Your Register Balance Differs From the Statement

This is the single most common question after a successful reconciliation, and it almost never means anything is wrong. Checks you have written that the recipient has not yet banked, and deposits you recorded on the last day of the month that the bank posts the following morning, are real entries in your books but they were not on the statement. Accountants call these outstanding items, and they are exactly why the balance in your register can differ from the closing balance on the statement while your reconciliation is still perfectly in balance.

The reconciliation report does that arithmetic for you. Underneath the statement summary you'll find a second box that walks from one balance to the other:

• Cleared Balance (per statement) — everything the bank had actually processed by the statement date
• Plus: Outstanding deposits and credits — money you recorded that had not landed yet
• Less: Outstanding checks and payments — payments you issued that had not been presented yet
• Register Balance as of the statement date — the figure you see in the account inside BizBooks Pro

Every outstanding item is then listed by date, number, payee and amount in its own section of the report, so you can see precisely which checks and deposits make up the gap. Most of them clear on the following month's statement and disappear from the list on their own.