How do I reconcile an account that has never been reconciled?

biglakeengine · ‎December 10, 2018

I have quickbooks 2015 for mac and I am trying to reconcile the bank account that has never been reconciled but I don't know where to start. Im confused because it has a beginning and ending balance that is wrong, how do I change that and start over?

IntuitCheyann · ‎December 10, 2018

Hi biglakeengine,

I'm here to help. The beginning balance will be incorrect when an opening balance was entered incorrectly, or was not entered during setup. Since this account has not been reconciled, there may be some transactions that were manually reconciled. You'll have to check your register to see if there are any transactions that were mistakenly reconciled and make the necessary corrections.

Here's an article that'll help you out:

https://community.intuit.com/articles/1213627

Feel free to reach out to me if there's anything else that you need.

View solution in original post

IntuitCheyann · ‎December 10, 2018

Hi biglakeengine,

I'm here to help. The beginning balance will be incorrect when an opening balance was entered incorrectly, or was not entered during setup. Since this account has not been reconciled, there may be some transactions that were manually reconciled. You'll have to check your register to see if there are any transactions that were mistakenly reconciled and make the necessary corrections.

Here's an article that'll help you out:

https://community.intuit.com/articles/1213627

Feel free to reach out to me if there's anything else that you need.

biglakeengine · ‎December 10, 2018

The beginning balance was entered correctly. How do I change the beginning balance so I can reconcile from the beginning?

biglakeengine · ‎December 10, 2018

The beginning balance was entered correctly. How do I change the beginning balance so I can reconcile from the beginning?

IntuitCheyann · ‎December 10, 2018

Hi @biglakeengine

If the beginning balance is incorrect, you'll have to create a journal entry. You'll then need to do a mini-reconciliation to correct the Beginning balance in the Reconciliation window.

Here's an article for further information: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://community.intuit.com/articles/1020555">https://community.intuit.com/articles/1020555</a>

Please let me know if you have any further concerns.

biglakeengine · ‎December 10, 2018

Ok so I figured out how to make the beginning balance zero, but now how do I put what we have as our opening balance?

IntuitCheyann · ‎December 10, 2018

Hi biglakeengine

To enter an opening balance, a journal entry has to be recorded. Make sure that the date on the entry is correct. You'll then need to do a mini-reconciliation.

If you have any further concerns, feel free to reach out to me again.

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

The first reconciliation will start with a Beginning Balance of 0, because none of the transactions, not even the initial deposit, is reconciled yet. Beginning Balance is the Net of all previously Cleared transactions. Your goal is not to match to this. Your goal is to match to the known Ending balance.

Marion017 · ‎December 10, 2018

Have your bank statement. The beginning balance of 1/1/15 needs to be recored in QB. Go to Journal entries, the first line enter your bank account from the drop down menue, debit the account for the beginning balance. Enter the 2nd line Beginning Balance (which is an equity account) credit the same amount. IF this doensn't work, reconcile the first month, the ending balance will be different not reflecting the beginning balance of the first statement. Click reconcile and it will create the entry for you. Hope that helps,

M.E.

qbteachmt · ‎December 10, 2018

You don't need to use JE for Banking. You already have Banking tools: Deposit or Check. If you never made the initial entry, and you had money to start with, you use Deposit. I never use JE, or OBE. You know the Real Equity is Real, not OBE. Once the file exists, you never use OBE directly and it should be 0 and never used again, if used at all to start a file. Make your Own, real, entries.

Topics

Training

Community

Resources

How do I reconcile an account that has never been reconciled?