My bank balance vs. in Quickbooks is totally incorrect. How do they come up with these numbers?

Hello there, @pawsvetscan-gmai. Let me help you match your Bank balance and QuickBooks balance for your bank account.

The Bank Balance will only depend on the update on your financial bank institution, while the In QuickBooks balance will change when you add transactions to your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account.

If your bank registered balance in QBO doesn't match your actual bank balance, several factors may cause the balances to vary. You may need to verify why they don’t match and fix them accordingly.

To do this, consider categorizing and matching your downloaded transactions based on your bank statement. You can do so by following the steps outlined in this article: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online. I also suggest comparing your register from your Chart of Accounts to the transactions shows on your bank account to check what causes the difference. 

When ready to reconcile in the future, see this resource for a guide: Reconcile bank accounts in QuickBooks Online.

If you have follow-up questions, feel free to leave a message in the comment section. I'm here to lend a hand. Stay safe!

@MirriamM , I am having the same issue and I just went through every transaction in Quickbooks vs. my bank. Every transaction matches, and yet my balance is off by $22,000 (bank is $15K and QBO shows -$7K). Are you able to shed some light on how I can troubleshoot this issue? I've reconciled every month and the transactions are all aligned. 

Thanks for joining the thread and sharing the details of your concern, @kimcarlson. Let's work together to find out the discrepancy and sort this issue out so you can get back to business in no time.

As provided by my colleague above, several factors may cause the balances to vary. 

Here's how you can fix it:

1. Review the original opening balance.
2. Check your bank statement and ensure you're reconciling the correct account for the month.
3. Match and categorize downloaded transactions.
4. Review any discrepancy reports.

You can read this article for more insights on what to review to fix issues reconciled in the past: Fix issues for accounts you've reconciled in the past in QuickBooks Online.

For future reference, you can also check out these resources here to help you fix your reconciliations in QBO, as well as monitor your transactions and detect possible errors accordingly:

• Undo or remove transactions from reconciliations in QuickBooks Online
• Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks

Please let me know if you have any more reconciliation concerns. I'll be right here to help.

I'm having the same issue. My Bank Reconciliation and the bank balance agree but the bank register is off almost $40K. That's before I add the latest expenses I know the Reconciliation affects the bank register because it changes. How can the register balance and the balance shown in reconciliation be different. We recently changed from QB POS to another POS and at the same time changed from QB Desktop to QBO.

Hi there, @bwojtek.

Allow me to provide further information on why your bank statement doesn't match your bank register.

The QuickBooks balance is affected by all your transactions in the register and the ones you haven't reviewed yet. While the bank balance is solely determined based on the transactions on the register.

To fix this and ensure they're equal, let's consider categorizing and matching your downloaded transactions based on your bank statement. You can do so by following the steps outlined in this article: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Just in case you want to reconcile your bank account, you can check out this article for more guidance: Reconcile bank accounts in QuickBooks Online. This will help you ensure your QuickBooks transactions match your bank statements.

Feel free to come back to this post if you have other concerns or follow-up questions about QuickBooks and Bank balances.

I have reconciled the bank statement. It balances at the end of every month. However, there are a bunch of transactions that were entered that are incorrect, (wrong acct, wrong amount that weren't deleted before the bank account was reconciled. Will it mess up the bank account if I delete them now after that period was reconciled even if they were not part of the reconciled transactions?

Hi Bwojtek,

Thank you for getting back to us here in the Community. Allow me to chime in and clarify things about reconciliation in QuickBooks Online.

Can you share which part in QuickBooks transactions is reflecting with the wrong bank account and amount? Any screenshots or additional details you can provide would help us provide much more accurate information to get you back on track.

Deleting transactions from a different account will not mess up the bank account you're reconciling. Please note only the specific transactions showing under your bank register in QuickBooks affect your account reconciliation.

The easiest way to process reconciliation is by taking out your bank statement. Physically mark the transactions that match the ones you entered into QuickBooks. This process gives you a much shorter list to work with.

We also have a complete guide to fix a bank reconciliation or edit completed reconciliations in QuickBooks Online. For your reference, check out this link: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Drop us a comment below if you have more questions or clarifications about reconciling an account. We'll be happy to help you some more. Have a great day.

@bwojtek 

@MirriamM's response of "The QuickBooks balance is affected by all your transactions in the register and the ones you haven't reviewed yet. While the bank balance is solely determined based on the transactions on the register." is wrong.  It's shocking that QB employees don't even know what makes up the balances.      

"I know the Reconciliation affects the bank register because it changes."

The reconciliation doesn't affect the bank register.  For a transaction to be reconciled, it has to be in the register and it affects the register balance regardless of whether it's reconciled or not.  The QB balance is affected only by transactions in your bank register, not transactions that are sitting in 'Bank transactions' waiting to be reviewed unless there is a matching transaction in the register.  The Bank Balance includes transactions sitting in 'Bank transactions' waiting to be reviewed but not any transactions that haven't cleared the bank.  If you have $40K difference between your register (QB balance) and your bank balance, you should be able to see the transactions that make up the difference by looking at your bank register and those transactions will not have either a "C" (cleared bank) or an "R" (reconciled) in the checkmark column.  You can organize the column to group the transactions by clicking on the checkmark.