Handling bank reconciliation

If your beginning balance in BQE CORE is different from the opening balance on your bank statement, you need to reconcile your accounts to match the balances for your bank statement and CORE account. This is a two-step process.

First, you must compare the beginning balance on your bank statement to the beginning balance in CORE and verify the information for the account you want to reconcile in CORE. Second, you have to compare individual transactions and then reconcile your accounts.

Note: If you clear a transaction directly in the account register, the beginning balance shown in the Reconciliations screen might not match the opening balance on your statement. Instead, clear transactions when you are reconciling accounts in CORE for a more accurate beginning balance.

To reconcile your accounts:

1. Go to the side menu > Accounting > Chart of Accounts.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the account you want to reconcile and click the row action menu to select Reconcile. Or you can directly open the Reconciliations screen from the main Accounting menu.
3. In the Statement Date field, enter the date of the bank statement you are trying to reconcile.
   
   
   
   
4. Compare the amount shown in the Beginning Balance field to the opening balance shown on your bank statement. How you handle the mismatch depends upon whether or not the accounts have been reconciled in the past. Check CORE Help Center for details.

First-Time Reconciliation
You might have entered your opening balance incorrectly when creating a new account (bank or credit card). If you have never reconciled your account, you can change the opening balance in the following way:

1. On the Chart of Accounts screen, find the account's opening balance transaction in the register (usually the first one) or look for Opening Balance Equity in the Account field of the register.
   
   
   
   
2. Change the Deposit amount to the correct opening balance.
3. Save the changes and exit.

Reconciliation Done Before

If your beginning balance in CORE is different from the opening balance on your bank statement in your previously reconciled accounts, you need to find the cause of the discrepancy. Some of the reasons that may cause a discrepancy include:

• You may have un-cleared a transaction in the account register by mistake. If yes, your beginning balance will be off by that amount. You can see this in the Reconciliation Discrepancies report.
• You have changed or deleted a previously cleared transaction. To fix this, you must undo the previous reconciliation and then reconcile again with the correct transactions.

You have an option to ignore the discrepancy for now. When you finish reconciling, CORE adds an adjustment transaction to the Reconciliation Discrepancies account. However, you should not ignore a large discrepancy because then you will be adding a large adjustment that may remain unaccounted.

1. Find the ending balance on your bank statement and enter it in the Statement Balance field.
   
   
   
   
2. Enter any service charge or interest earned that you have not yet entered in CORE.
3. In the Account field for Service Charge, enter the name of the expense account that you use to track service charges. 
4. In the Account field for Interest Charge, enter the name of the income account that you use to track interest income.
5. Click Continue to display all the checks/payments and deposits/credits to be cleared.
6. Next, complete the reconciliation by selecting Save Reconciliation. Check CORE Help Center for details.