Bank Reconciliation

[Marge]

I have been trying to reconcile my bank account. I balanced perfectly in June. When trying to balance in July, I ran into a problem. My July reconciliation shows to be $225 out of balance. But, my beginning balance, my deposits and the checks that have cleared match perfectly to my bank statement. I don't know where to go to find the problem, because everything balances exept the $225. There doesn't seem to be any reason for that amount to show out of balance. Can you give me some suggestions as to where I can look for my problem. What would happen if I just considered it an anamoly, and ignored the out of balance. Would that cause me a problem for the rest of the year.

Thanks for your help.

Marge

[Zorak]

If you don't resolve it this month, it will probably just carry the $225 forward from month to month.

If you aren't able to find a $225 transaction that is not reconciled, try going back into the reconciliation screen, choosing to view "all data" instead of just "unreconciled". Then take a look through to see if there was something reconciled in a previous month that is possibly throwing you off.

Unfortunately, when trying to figure out a problem with the bank rec, there aren't any hidden features or voodoo at play, it really is just addition and subtraction. All of the transactions that are being included or excluded from the addition and subtraction are there on the screen.

[JohnDMeyers]

Also, on your reconciliation report, it tells you the beginning balance, total deposits reconciled, and total checks reconciled.

Compare your deposit total to the reconciliation report, and your check total to the reconciliation report. That will show you which one is off.

If neither is off, your beginning balance was off.

[Marge]

Thanks for your help. I think I still have a problem.
My Bank Statement:
Ending Balance, $20167.57
Deposits, $9392.00
Bank interest $2.76
Total checks $12084.95

PCP
Bank statement balance $20167.57
Total Deposits $9394.76. That includes the $2.76 interest
Total Checks cleared $12,084.95.

That's why I am so puzzled. All of my statements from Jan thru June have balanced perfectly. From what I can see, July should have too. How can all of my figures match and I still be out of balance by $225? I even added both statements up manually, and all of the data is identical to what is on the two reports.

I will restore my data back to the end of July and do all of my August contributions and checks in to see if that resolves my problem.

I will let you know.

Thanks again, Marge

[JohnDMeyers]

Yeah, I'm guessing your beginning balance was off.

Make sure you back up your current month before restoring. If you find the beginning balance was off, you can restore the current month and make the correction so that you don't have to redo the whole reconciliation.

[Jeff]

what version of powerchurch are you using?

[Marge]

I am using Version 10, and I got an update to 10.1 a few weeks ago.

I have restored my files back to the first of July and reentered all of my data. I hand checked each entry to make sure that there were no errors in data entry.

I then did my reconcilation, and I came up with the same results.

The information on my bank statement matched beginning balance, ending balance, deposits and withdrawals to my PCP beginning balance, ending balance deposits and withdrawals.

What I don't understand is: All of my previous reconcilations have been perfect. I checked the data on each month to see if I was looking in the wrong places, and the information on the previous six months matched perfectly, just like it does for July. It looks to me like the problem is between the Adjusted bank balance and the account 1110 balance. The bank balance is $16,949.43 and the Account 1110 balance is $16,724.43.

Where should I be looking to find why there is that difference? Other than the difference in the two "bank balance" amounts, everything matches. Deposits and checks on my bank statement and the PCP Bank reconcilation.

I love working with Power Church Plus, but this has got me puzzled. Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Marge

[JohnDMeyers]

Marge:

After your backup and before you started your new reconciliation, did you type in the beginning balance and confirm it reconciled to zero?

What you are describing seems not to be possible.

One other thing to look for:

Do you have any unposted checks in Accounts Payable or Fund Accounting that total $225?

[Marge]

I have printed out all of my check registers and account activity reports from January thru July. I am going to try and find some data that totals $225 . I don't understand your question about making sure my balance was zero before I started my reconciliation. Maybe I have missed a step, but I never had to do that before. Please tell me what I should be doing.

I agree with you that what I am seeing doesn't seem possible, but neverless, I have two reports that match exactly, and I am sill $225 out of whack.

Like I said earlier, I have reviewed each months reconcilation, because I print out each reconcilitation Account 1110 report. Each report balances out to zero. Each report shows the same comparisons between the bank statement and PCP reconcilitation reports for that month. They all go to zero, except for my friendly ghost in July.

I will let you know what I find on Monday. My mind is fried over this, and I'm taking the day off tomorrow.
I really appreciate all the help and input.

I do have one question. If I can't find the problem, will that $225 affect any of my data other than the bank reconciliation report? If not, do I really need to find the problem?

Thanks again

Marge

[JohnDMeyers]

The step with the beginning balance goes like this:

Say, June reconciled to $15,141.00 and the difference was zero.

You come back on August 12th, and its a month later and you are ready to reconcile July, which has an ending balance of $16,949.43.

The first thing I do is this: type in June 30, and $15,141.00 and make sure the reconciliation is zero before I begin. A month has gone by, and something could have happened to the last reconciliation.

If you don't verify your June 30 reconciliation, something like what you are describing could happen.

If it is not too much trouble, you should restore last month one more time, type in the June ending balance (that was already reconciled) and make sure the difference is zero.

Then re-enter your current month.

If that checks out and you're still $225 off and you can't find it anywhere, make an entry in the checking account and misc income or misc expense as something like "unknown expense" and show it to your board. (sometimes you have to show things to the board before you do it).

[Marge]

I found a difference of $225 between the June 30 Bank Reconciliation Account and the June Check Register.
The Bank Reconciliation Account showed $4,528.37 in outstanding checks, and the June Check Register showed $4,303.37.

The problem I have in trying to find out the discrepancy is that the Bank Reconciliation Account report does not show the outstanding checks that make up the $4,528.37, so I really don't have anything to check against. I looked back on some of the older reports and they don't all match either.

Is there any place else I can look to possibly find the problem? I did review the check registers, and I don't have any checks for $225. Of course, I suppose there could be a combination of checks. Short of going back and redoing all of the data from January, which I am not inclined to do, I don't know where else to look.

You had told me that I could put in an adjustment to reflect and correct the problem. I won't have any problem with my pastor or the board, but I want to make sure that I do it correctly.

Thanks again for your help.

Marge

[JohnDMeyers]

Here are two ideas before you make the correction entry.

1) It looks like a check for $225 was cashed and not recorded. That is typically what happens when someone hand-writes a check and forgets to enter a manual check in the system.

2) Look over your bank statements quickly for exactly $225 in the check column. It could be a deposit correction or something unusual like that.

If either of these things doesn't pan out, then I would enter a misc expense (because it's obvious that a subtraction is needed from the checking account to even things out).

DB misc expense "unknown expense"
CR general checking "unknown expense"

If, in the future, the $225 is found, you can always reverse this transaction.

[Marge]

Thanks for all of your help. I have only written one manual check, and that one is in the system. I will let you know if something miraculous happens and I find the problem. Otherwise, I hope I don't have to bother you again anytime soon.

Marge

[rlcox]

Marge,

You aren't alone. I have been reconciling without a problem. When I tried to reconcile July I am suddenly $45.78 off. My deposits and checks match, my ending balance has been entered correctly but now I have an amount I can't find. I am going to restore an old back up and re-enter everything since that point and see if I can get this figured out. While I haven't yet done all the comparisons you have done, I can't figure out why I would suddenly have an amount showing up as a difference.

Laurie
Peabody UMC