The reconciliation of accounts is the feature of QuickBooks that users widely look up to. Through reconciliation, you can save time and gets your accounts managed effectively. This is the best and most useful feature of the accounting software.
What is Reconcile Discrepancies in QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is not the software that helps you with your accounting and transaction detailing processes. It is also about the management of the financial data in a proper way. This feature helps you to ensure that whatever transactions are made for the business are accurately stored and managed.
It reconciles the data properly to indicate tallied data. However, there are times when you find that the accounts, after reconciliation, show different balances. These are called reconciliation discrepancies.
Why do we Need to Resolve it?
When discrepancies occur, the data stored and managed in QuickBooks gets affected and shows incorrect data, which is more likely to affect the business transaction detail and your decision-making based on inaccurate reconciliation data.
Thus, it is important to resolve the issues as soon as possible. However, before the issue is resolved, it is important to understand the reasons that cause it. Some of the possible reasons are given below:
- Addition of already added data
- Deletion of the required data
- Changes in the original data
- Reconciliation adjustments or forced reconciliation
Steps to Resolve the Reconciliation Discrepancy issue in QuickBooks
To fix the reconciliation issue, it is important to find the discrepancy first. As a result, users are expected to run a few reports and see where the issues are. Once the discrepancies are found, you can modify or make changes in the data to remove the discrepancy.
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Run Reconciliation Discrepancy Report
When you run this report, you will get to identify the data that were modified since your last reconciliation. The data is filtered as per the statement dates and hence makes it easy to identify the discrepancy. The steps to run the reports are as follows:
Navigate to the Reports menu Take your cursor to the Banking option Choose Reconciliation Discrepancy Choose the account to be reconciled Click OK Check the report to detect discrepancy if any Edit the transaction only if you find it inappropriate [Know the reason why the change was done, if it was required or done by mistake]
Run Missing Checks Report
This report is generated to give you an idea about the missing checks. To run this report, follow the below-mentioned steps:
Navigate to the Reports menu Take your cursor to the Banking option Choose Missing Checks Select the account to be reconciled Click OK Check the report to identify the discrepancy If there is any record that is not present in your bank account record, it should not be stored in the reconciliation report Remove if anything as such is there
Run Transaction Detail Report
This will help you identify the data if anything has changed. The steps to run this report are listed below:
Navigate to the Reports menu Take your cursor over Custom Reports Choose Transaction Detail Click on the Display tab Go to the Date From field, choose the earliest date available or leave it blank Go to the Date to field, choose the date when you reconciled data the last time Click on the Filters tab Go to the Account field Choose the account to be reconciled Click on Entered/Last Modified option Set the Date From and choose the date you performed the last reconciliation In the Date To field, choose the present date Click OK Check the discrepancies in the report generated Edit the transaction if you feel the entered data is inapt
Check for Reconciliation Adjustments
You can check for discrepancies here but you cannot make the changes yourself. It is important to have an expert for fixing the adjustments because one error or mistake might lead to major accounting issues in your business.
Navigate to the Lists menu Choose Chart of Accounts Click and open the Reconciliation Discrepancies account Go to the Dates field and choose the dates for a couple of last reconciliations performed In case, you find forced adjustments that seem inaccurate, communicate with the one who made the changes It might be an updated data required to be adjusted Decide accordingly whether to fix the error or keep it as is
The above-mentioned steps are clear and the instructions are quite easy to follow. However, there are instances where you might find yourself stuck and would like to have someone to assist you.
What are Reconcile Discrepancies in QuickBooks?
The reconciliation discrepancies affect the data stored and managed in QuickBooks and show incorrect data, which misleads the decision-making of the businesses.
How is this Reconcile Discrepancy Caused?
Some of the reasons are listed below:
Addition of already added data Deletion of the required data Changes in the original data Reconciliation adjustments or forced reconciliation
How to Find out the Reconciliation Discrepancy?
To find out the reconciliation discrepancies, it is advisable to run reports and detect the places where the discrepancies exist. As a user, you should try running Reconciliation Discrepancies Report, Transaction Detail Report, Missing Checks Report, etc.
Can you Tackle the Reconciliation Adjustments by Yourself?
No. if you find an issue with reconciliation adjustments, make modifications only when your accountant is present.
