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Where each section of the Bank Reconciliation report comes from

Adapted from the Macola® Bank Book technical note on the Bank Reconciliation report, revised July 2000.

Run the Bank Reconciliation report to show both cleared and outstanding transactions and you get two sections, each with its own summary. The six balances across those two summaries come from four different places, and knowing which is which is the difference between finding a discrepancy in a minute and finding it in an afternoon.

First section

Balance Where it comes from
Bank statement beginning balance The ending balance keyed from the preceding statement
Calculated statement ending balance Produced by the reconciliation process
Actual statement ending balance The statement ending balance keyed through statement maintenance, for the statement date being reconciled

Second section

Balance Where it comes from
Bank statement ending balance The statement ending balance keyed through statement maintenance, for the statement date being reconciled
Calculated book balance Calculated by the program. It starts with the statement beginning balance and nets every open item in the open item file through the cut-off date — or the statement date — against that balance
Actual book balance Depends on the cut-off date. See below

The actual book balance depends on the cut-off date

This is the one that catches people out.

  • With the statement date as the cut-off, the value is every open item in the open item file past the cut-off date, netted against the book amount field of the cash account view.
  • With LATEST as the cut-off, the value is the actual cash account book amount as seen in the S/M cash account view.

Why the report may not agree with the G/L cash account

The report is a subledger view, not a general ledger view

Whether a reconciliation report — or, for that matter, the cash account view — ties to what the G/L cash account shows depends on whether all transactions from all subledger packages for the dates involved have actually been posted to the general ledger.

On the occasions when they do match, it is a snapshot of that specific moment, much like a balance sheet. If Bank Book is set up properly and used properly, the cash account book amount view should correctly reflect an actual cash account balance.

So when the report and the G/L disagree, the first question is not "which balance is wrong" but "which subledger has transactions still waiting to post".

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