Reconcile a month

A reconciliation proves your TALISK_HQ books agree with the bank for a period. You do not need to be a bookkeeper to do one: you are checking that every transaction on your bank statement is also in TALISK_HQ.

Often it is one click. When you upload a statement that adds up and your books already match it, the account appears under Ready to reconcile at the top of Ledger › Banking › Reconciliation (and on the Statements tab). Press Reconcile, confirm, and TALISK_HQ ticks every transaction through the statement's end date and locks it. Nothing is posted to your books. An account that does not match yet is listed with the reason instead, and you reconcile it by hand as below. Bank accounts and credit cards both get the offer; a prepaid balance (a CBSA or PST account) does not.

An account with a live bank connection needs no statement at all. A few days after each month ends, once the bank feed agrees with the bank's own balance, TALISK_HQ works that balance back to the last day of the month (taking out anything dated after it) and offers the month under Ready to reconcile, marked From your bank feed. Reconciling it works the same way. If the feed is short of the bank's balance, or the connection has not synced recently, the month is not offered until it catches up. If you have uploaded a statement for that month or later, the statement is used instead.

1. Go to Ledger › Banking › Reconciliation.
2. Click Start New Reconciliation.
3. Choose the bank account, the date the statement ends, and the closing balance the statement shows. A balance from online banking works too; use a date a few days back so recent charges have gone through. For a credit card, enter the balance you owe, as the statement prints it.
4. Open your statement beside the worksheet and tick every transaction that also appears on it. Tick all ticks every line in one go when they are all there; it becomes Untick all once they are.

The worksheet adds up what you tick. Ticked so far starts from the account's starting balance (your books' balance the day before the account's first transaction in TALISK_HQ, which is how money already in the account before then is counted) and adds each line you tick. Difference is what is still unaccounted for. On a credit card every figure is what you owe: a charge you tick adds to it and a payment takes it off.

When the difference reads $0.00 the card says Ties to the penny. Press Complete to finish: you stay on the worksheet, which confirms the account is reconciled and locked through the statement date, with a link back to your reconciliations. TALISK_HQ keeps it in your reconciliation history. Import the month's transactions first: either through a connected bank or by uploading the statement on the Statements tab.

If the difference will not reach zero, the amount left over is the clue: look for a transaction of exactly that size that is missing, entered twice, or ticked but not on the statement. Complete with discrepancy finishes anyway and records the gap for your accountant. It does not change your books; use it only when you have decided to accept the gap.

If the account is in a foreign currency, you reconcile in that currency: the statement balance, cleared balance and difference are all shown in the account's own currency, and you tie it out against the statement exactly as you would a home-currency account. Your books still carry the account in your home currency at its booked cost, so the worksheet shows the account's foreign position and its home-currency booked value side by side instead of a single tie figure; that booked-value-versus-today's-rate gap is unrealized and isn't a reconciliation error.