Start your business
Start your business
Run your business
Run your business
Grow your business
Grow your business
Accountants and Bookkeepers
Accountants and Bookkeepers
- Accountants and Bookkeepers
  Learn how accountants and bookkeepers can be productive in these articles & guides
- Learning and Development
  A range of informative content to enhance your QuickBooks experience.
Updates
Updates
- Product Updates
  Watch this space for monthly product updates.
- Intuit News
  Latest news, articles & guides

Need help choosing a plan?

1800 917 771 Schedule a call

Schedule call

product update

How to reconcile your bank accounts

By Lauretta Finis

Published on July 31, 20243 min read

When you enter transactions into your QuickBooks Online file, such as expenses, making payments against bills, deposits, and payments against your customer invoices, each of the transactions need to be checked and matched to bank records. This process is called reconciling. This should be done for all your bank accounts and credit card accounts that are linked to your QuickBooks Online file on a monthly basis.

The transactions in QuickBooks Online should mirror your business bank account. This is a significant part of the process of bookkeeping. If you do not take the time to reconcile correctly you may find that you have missed some very important transactions that are not entered or transactions that are entered twice. These errors could cause serious discrepancies in your file, effecting:

Financials: How accurate will they be, what is the performance of your business and how can you make important business decisions?
Your BAS: You may have to pay more in GST or, if you have underestimated the transactions, you might owe more to the ATO
Tax return: When your accountant process’s your tax returns at the end of the financial year how accurate will this be? You may have to pay more in tax

One of QuickBooks Online features is the online banking feed. This will assist with accuracy and ensures that all transactions are accounted for. See our previous blogs on online banking and bank rules.

One of my clients who is in the construction industry would try to reconcile his bank accounts and credit card manually. Prior to using and becoming familiar with online banking feeds, at most end of quarters he would arrive to my office with unfinished and unreconciled accounts. We would sit there for hours to resolve the issues, missing transactions and incorrect amounts being entered. This would take a considerable amount of his and my time. I trained my client to allocate the bank feeds correctly and he now reconciles his bank accounts in less than two minutes. Reconciling correctly saves him valuable time and money.

How to reconcile bank accounts in QuickBooks

Let’s look at this process. Once all of your online banking feed transactions have been matched and added for the month, this is the next step:

From the Company gear icon (located top upper corner) > Tools > Reconcile.

In the Reconcile window open the drop down menu. Choose your Account > Choose the bank account that you are reconciling > Click Reconcile Now.

Enter in your end date > Statement Ending Date and balance > Ending Balance from your bank statement > Click OK.

In this particular example below let’s look at reconciling the account called Westpac Chq Acc – 246814. The bank statement end date is 31st August 2015 and has an ending balance of $45645.81.

In the Reconcile window choose this account from the drop down menu. We can see that the 31/07/15 was the last date this bank account was reconciled > Click the date to see the report > Click Reconcile Now.

Enter in the Statement Ending Date 31/08/2015 and Ending Balance $45645.81 > Click OK.

The transactions highlighted in yellow with the Green paper icon are transactions that have come across from the online banking feeds. As you can see these are ticked and highlighted
These transactions have been entered manually so you need to investigate to see if these belong here. Are they correct? Have they doubled up?
Beginning balance of bank statement
Statement Ending balance of bank statement
Difference: $0.00 balance means this bank account has reconciled because the ticked transactions are correct
Cancel: If you need to cancel out of the reconcile window this will lose all transactions you have ticked
Finish Later: Click this button if you need to come back later and complete. You will not lose any transactions that you have ticked
Finish Now: Done! Bank reconciled – congratulations!
Edit information from Statement: Edit here if you have entered a balance or date incorrectly

Reconcile Any Control Account

We’ve seen how easy it is to reconcile a bank account as long as the correct transactions have been entered, but have you thought of running the reconcile process for any other control account? Try your Petty Cash account, Payroll Clearing account, Superannuation liability account or Loan accounts.

Any account in your balance sheet can be reconciled in the above manner to ensure the accuracy of your file is maintained.

Looking for something else?

Get QuickBooks

Smart features made for your business. We've got you covered.

See how it works

Help Me Choose

Use our product selector to find the best accounting plan for you.

Choose your product

QuickBooks Support

Get help with QuickBooks. Find articles, video tutorials, and more.

Start learning

A computer screen showing a picture of a computer.

TAKE A NO-COMMITMENT TEST DRIVE

Your free 30-day trial awaits

Our customers save an average of 9 hours per week with QuickBooks invoicing*

No credit card needed

Cancel anytime

Unlimited support

By entering your email, you are agree to our Terms and acknowledge our Privacy Statement.

- - QuickBooks reserves the right to change pricing, features, support and service at any time. Prices are in AUD and include GST. See our Terms of Service for further information.
  - Pricing: All prices are in AUD and include GST.
  - ProAdvisor Program: Please find the terms of our ProAdvisor program here.
  - 50% off for 3 months: For new subscribers, enjoy a 50% off price subscription on QuickBooks Online Simple Start, QuickBooks Online Essentials or QuickBooks Online Plus for the first 3 months of your subscription (Offer). The discount will applied from the date of your enrolment and will continue for 3 months. From month 4, you will be charged the then current monthly retail price for your subscription. See current prices here. QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time prices are not eligible for any discount and will be invoiced separately according to your usage on a monthly basis during your subscription. Intuit reserves the right to request information to verify the eligibility of a purchaser of the Offer. Acceptance of such verification information is at the reasonable discretion of Intuit, which may revoke the Offer and impose a monthly cost for the subscription at the then current retail prices, at any time if it considers the purchaser is ineligible for the Offer.
  - 50% off for 12 months: For new subscribers, enjoy a 50% discount off the current monthly retail price for QuickBooks Self-Employed, QuickBooks Online Simple Start, QuickBooks Online Essentials or QuickBooks Online Plus for the first 12 months of your subscription (Offer). The discount will applied from the date of your enrolment and will continue for 12 months. From month 13, you will be charged the then current monthly retail price for your subscription. See current prices here. QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time prices are not eligible for any discount and will be invoiced separately according to your usage on a monthly basis during your subscription. Intuit reserves the right to request information to verify the eligibility of a purchaser of the Offer. Acceptance of such verification information is at the reasonable discretion of Intuit, which may revoke the Offer and impose a monthly cost for the subscription at the then current retail prices, at any time if it considers the purchaser is ineligible for the Offer.
  - 50% off for 3 months (existing subscribers): For existing QuickBooks subscribers who upgrade to QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus or Advanced, enjoy a 50% discount off the current monthly retail price for 3 months of your subscription (Offer). The discount will be applied from the date you upgrade in-product and will continue for 3 months. From month 4, you will be charged the then current monthly retail price for your subscription. See current prices here. QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time services and prices are not eligible for any discount and will be invoiced separately according to your usage on a monthly basis during your subscription. Intuit reserves the right to request information to verify the eligibility of a purchaser of the Offer. Acceptance of such verification information is at the reasonable discretion of Intuit, which may revoke the Offer and impose a monthly cost for the subscription at the then current retail prices, at any time if it considers the purchaser is ineligible for the Offer.
  - Free Trial: First thirty (30) days of subscription to QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Self-Employed and QuickBooks Payroll (including QuickBooks Advanced Payroll), starting from the date of enrolment, is free. During the free trial, you may pay any number of employees using QuickBooks Payroll free of charge. To continue using QuickBooks after your 30-day trial, you'll be asked to present a valid credit card for authorisation and you'll be charged monthly at the then-current fee for the service(s) you've selected.
  - QuickBooks Payroll powered by Employment Hero: Payroll services are offered by a third party, Employment Hero. QuickBooks Payroll is only accessible via QuickBooks Online subscriptions. You will be charged $6.00 (incl. GST) per month for each ‘active employee’ paid using QuickBooks Payroll. An ‘active employee’ is one who has been paid at least once in the billing month. For Advanced Payroll, there is an additional monthly subscription fee of $10 (incl GST). Pricing, terms and conditions, including service options, are subject to change.
  * Employment Hero was voted the leading payroll solution for SMBs <50 employees (Australian Payroll Association 2021 Payroll Benchmarking Study)
  - Customer support: Call or chat to an expert for QuickBooks Online Accountant, QuickBooks Simple Start, Essential, Plus, and Advanced or use in-product QB Assistant and chat for QuickBooks Self-Employed. You'll also find useful resources in the QuickBooks Community.
  - Compatible Devices: QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Self-Employed and QuickBooks Payroll require a computer with Internet Explorer 10, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari 6 and an Internet connection (a high-speed connection is recommended). The QuickBooks Online mobile app works with iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll are accessible on mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and Blackberry mobile devices. Devices sold separately; data plan required. QuickBooks Payroll cannot be used on the mobile apps. Not all features are available on the mobile apps and mobile browser. QuickBooks Online mobile access is included with your QuickBooks Online subscription at no additional cost. Data access is subject to cellular/internet provider network availability and occasional downtime due to system and server maintenance and events beyond your control. Product registration required.
  - Get paid faster: Get paid 2.5x faster invoicing with PayPal
  * PayPal and QuickBooks customers get paid on average in less than 5 days, which is over 7 days faster than the average for invoices that get paid with other payment methods. Data is for paid invoices that were created in QuickBooks in Australia between 23.05.22 and 23.11.22
  - Tax deductions: Tax deductions not guaranteed due to being subject to user data entry errors. Mileage calculation provided by the Australia Taxation Office - 85 cents per kilometre for the 2023-2024 income year. To a maximum of 5,000 business kilometres per car (Deductions are only applicable to cars)
  - Customer Service Awards: Excellence in Customer Service Award at the CX Australia Awards 2022
  - Multiple file discount: Multiple file discount applies to QuickBooks Australia customers only and valid when signing up for more than one QuickBooks Online subscription in one order. Further terms and conditions available here. Not applicable to QuickBooks Self Employed.
  - Reviews: GetApp, Capterra, Google Play Store, Apple App Store reviews as at date 08/01/24.
  - Cost per day claim (annual): Based on a QuickBooks Simple Start plan at its regular retail price of $313 per year and a 365 day year.
  - Annual Billing: You may pay for your QuickBooks Online subscription on an annual, upfront basis to enjoy a discount on the current fees. If you use QuickBooks Payroll powered by Employment Hero, your payroll costs will still be charged monthly to your nominated payment method in accordance with your usage as set out here. If you cancel your QuickBooks Online subscription within the pre-paid 12 month period, you will not be eligible for a refund, but will retain full access to your QuickBooks Online subscription for the remainder of the 12-month period. Unless cancelled by you prior, your annual subscription will auto-renew on the 12 month anniversary of your sign-up date using the billing details you have given us. Discounts, prices, terms and conditions are subject to change.
  - Over 7 million customers: Based on number of global QB customers (ecosystem) (7.1m) worldwide as of October 2022.
  - Free Onboarding: Applicable to Buy Now subscriptions on QuickBooks Simple Start, Essentials and Plus plans. Not available for QuickBooks Self-Employed.
  - Save Hours: Save up to an average of 29 hours per month with QuickBooks.
  - * Based on a survey conducted by Intuit Australia Pty Ltd in September 2022. Time saving is in comparison to previous accounting method, based on 184 responses from customers that saw time savings.
  - Get access to QuickBooks Tax: ***Access QuickBooks Tax, powered by LodgeiT, by becoming a member of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program (it’s free to join). Find out more about the ProAdvisor Program here, including the terms of the QuickBooks Tax offer in the Program here.
  - QuickBooks Time Disclaimers & Offers for Australia: For Important pricing offers and disclaimers with further information, please see here.
  - *Full terms and conditions for access to QuickBooks Tax, powered by LodgeiT as part of the the Proadvisor Program can be found here. QuickBooks reserves the right to change pricing, features, support and service at any time.
  - **Intuit conducted a study involving 56 interviews with accountants and bookkeepers who used Books Review for BAS preparation between March to December 2021 and found that when using Books Review, participants reduced the time spent preparing their clients BAS Reports by around 40%.
  - Our Terms of Service apply to all QuickBooks Online subscriptions. Please review them carefully.

Intuit helps put more money in consumers’ and small businesses’ pockets, saving them time by eliminating work, and ensuring they have confidence in every financial decision they make.