Hello meafordbookkeeping,
This is a great question! I have a feeling about what may be going on and am happy to explain.
Since you're seeing transactions already marked off as reconciled even as you start the process, I suspect you or your client may also be using the bank feed feature in QuickBooks Online to add or match bank transactions through the Banking tab. If so, that's why you're seeing these items pre-checked when you open the reconcile screen.
When adding or matching from the bank feed, the program considers it a kind of reconcile in that it acknowledges this is coming from your bank statement, which is what you would use to reconcile anyway. In this case, the program marks the transactions as "cleared," which is sort of a soft reconcile. You'd still need to go through the reconcile process to record it fully.
You can verify if this is the case by going to the account register for the bank in the chart of accounts through the Accounting tab. The transactions that have been added or matched from the feed will show the letter C in the column to the left of the tax column.
I hope that helps. Here are a few articles for you about the bank feed and reconciliation processes in QuickBooks Online.
I hope that helps! I'm here if you have more questions. :)
