Reconciling QuickBooks, in either the desktop or online version, is just like balancing your personal checkbook; your bank balance should agree to your QuickBooks account balance plus or minus items that have not yet cleared the bank. Every month, collect your bank statements to make sure you’ve entered every transaction into QuickBooks.
Reconciling is something your nonprofit should do once a month to make sure your financial picture is clear and up-to-date. Having a clear financial picture gives you the chance to catch issues early and leverage opportunities more effectively.
Here are a few tips from the Nonprofit team at Corrigan Krause to help you reconcile your accounts with QuickBooks:
- Before you start, make sure you have all your banking information. Each bank account in your Organization’s name will have its own reconciliation. You may have paper copies of statements or you may be able to access this information online. Check your general ledger to make sure you’re including everything.
- When you open up QuickBooks, take a look at the last time the balance in QuickBooks matched your general ledger. Whatever that date is, that is where you need to start reconciling. You may find that you need to go further back into your bank statements than you originally planned, but it’s important that you make the effort and continue reconciling your QuickBooks so there aren’t any gaps in your reporting.
- Check your deposits. Make sure all deposits that appear in your bank statements appear in QuickBooks. Don’t assume a check was deposited – make sure of it. Sometimes donor checks bounce and you don’t want to count money that isn’t really in your account. Additionally, you’ll need to assess what type of deposits are made and account for them appropriately. Not all deposits are donations; some are from the sale of an asset, interest earned on an account, a refund, etc.
- Check your withdrawals. Every debit from your accounts should be recorded. If you find a withdrawal should have happened and didn’t, find out why. Maybe the transaction is still pending with the bank, isn’t deposited by the recipient, or maybe you paid from a different account. Regardless of the reason, keeping tabs on your exiting cash flow is just as important as tracking your income sources.
- Take note of your ending balance. Your ending balance is where you’ll start your reconciliation process next time.
As you’re working through your reconciliation process, it may take some time to figure out why certain transactions aren’t matching up. This is why it’s so important to – at a minimum – reconcile your QuickBooks once a month. It’s much easier to track down a transaction from a couple weeks or days ago than it is to try and figure out something from months ago.
Intuit QuickBooks has a number of how-to support pages available online. Here are a couple we find very helpful: Reconcile QuickBooks Online and Reconcile QuickBooks Desktop.
Corrigan Krause can help
The Corrigan Krause Nonprofit team can help you get a clear financial picture of your organization. You can connect with any of the Nonprofit team members here or email info@corrigankrause.com.
