Foreign currency bank account balance

Hi E21J,

It’s good to hear to that you’re able to reconcile your account.

Reconciliation will not affect your account balance unless you create an adjustment entry, which I believe you didn't have since you got a nil difference.

On the other hand, the balance you see is the account balance within the period specified in your report. What report is it, by the way?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

It shows a balance on the balance sheet, both on the face of it and then if I drill down into the individual line for the account.

Many thanks.

Thanks for getting back to us, E21J.

Reconciliation is not a posting entry.

It does not reduce the balance of your balance sheet unless you created a transaction.

You might want to compare each transaction recorded on the register versus the transactions showing on the balance sheet. This will help us identify as to where the amount is coming from.

If you have other concerns, I'm always here to help.

Thank you.

I do understand that the reconciliation is not a posting entry.

What I am seeking to understand is why when the following places show the account balance to be zero:

1) the Chart of Accounts - zero balance on USD account

2) account register - zero balance on USD account

the Balance Sheet and Account Transactions report show a balance of around a $100.

Many thanks.

Thank you for getting back to us, @E21J.

Allow me to chime in and provide some information about the account balance.

Just to clarify, are these transactions recorded to a different currency? If so, the exchange rate of this currency is set per transaction. So even the balance in the Chart of Accounts has zero balance, it does not convert the report to Home currency by running balance, but converts per transaction.

Also, when converting per transaction to Home currency and total them to the report, it'll cause a balance even if the bank balance showing zero for foreign banks. That means, your Balance Sheet and Account Transactions report will have the balance but your Chart of Accounts have zero.

That answer your question. Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll be around if you need any help.

Ok, thank you for your reply, @Mark_R .

How do I make the Balance Sheet and Account Transactions show zero at a given date as this is what I need to do because there is nothing in the account.

Many thanks.

Thanks for your replies @Mark_R  and @GlinetteC .

I have been through the transactions on the BS report and compared them to those on the register as suggested by @GlinetteC .  This shows that every time we received some money in USD and then converted that money and transferred it to the GBP account a couple of days later, there was a small variance.  Overtime, these variances have accumulated and now amount to c. £100.

Please can you advise how I can adjust this home currency balance to zero so that my balance sheet agrees to the bank statements at a given date?

If I am not able to do this, my balance sheet will show a balance in the USD account which does not exist.  If there are no USD in the USD account, I am not able to withdraw any whether in USD or GBP and therefore, no amount should show on the Balance Sheet.

Many thanks.

Thanks for the reply and for the additional details, E21J.

I would recommend consulting an accountant to help you with the adjustment.

Going forward, you can let QuickBooks calculate the gain or loss for you, so you won't have to receive money to a USD account, convert, and then transfer to a GBP account. Normally, you can receive the payment from your customer like receive the actual amount on the invoice. Then, when you deposit it to your bank account (GBP) that's the time you enter the exchange rate, so QuickBooks will calculate the exchange gain or loss for you.

If you have other questions, you can always go back to this thread.

Thank you for this @JessT .

However, please can you advise the best way to input these transactions when the funds are received to a USD bank account?  It is great that I can do this in principle however, it is not what actually happens.  As we are not able to receive USD into our actual bank account (as against the QB one), we receive the money into our USD bank account and, then once we have received the funds (checked via online banking), we transfer it to our GBP account.  So, these are transactions which actually happen via the banks rather than just the way it has been done in QB.

Many thanks.

@E21J 

Hi! Were you able to resolve this issue?  I have the same problem.  Winding down my client's company and all bank accounts are now at zero on bank statement, bank reconciliation and chart of accounts except on the Balance Sheet, like your example. 

Hi Marianne,

E21J was able to solve the questions by following the steps provided by my colleague @JessT. Just make sure that when transfer funds or create deposits from one account to the other, the US Dollar is selected as the transfer currency. Then, you will enter the amount in USD and the exchange rate at that time. This process will zero out the balance in your USD account.

We still suggest reaching out to an accountant if there's a need for you to create an adjustment. You can also get in touch with our Phone Support Team if you get the same result after selecting the transfer currency. I'll be attaching an article about the Multicurrency feature in QuickBooks Desktop. 

Let me know if you have other questions. Keep safe!

@Catherine_BThanks for the reply.  I am actually using QBO not desktop.  Also, if I make a transfer entry, it will affect my bank reconciliation which is now all balanced and at zero.

Hey there, @Marianne. 

Thanks for following up with us and letting us know that you're using QuickBooks Online. 

As mentioned by my colleagues above, the best solution is to consult with your accounting professional. Your accountant will know what would be the best steps to take for your business. If you don't have an accountant, don't sweat. You can find one here in our Resource Center. 

In the meantime, I've included a few handy articles below that cover more details about multicurrency in QuickBooks Online that you may find beneficial. 

• Enter home currency adjustments for your foreign balances

• About Multicurrency

• Use multicurrency 

Please let me know if you have additional questions or concerns. I'll be here every step of the way. Feel free to reach back out to the Community at any time. Have a great day! 

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@E21J wrote:

I have reconciled my USD bank account to nil as per the statement but when I run a transaction report, QB shows that there is a balance.

 

Yet if I go to run the next reconciliation, the brought forward is nil.

 

What is wrong and how can I fix this please?

 

Thanks.

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Please ...I want to check balance on the usd

I can help you with checking your bank balance in USD, @Afanador.

You can go to your company file's Chart of Accounts to check the balance in USD if you've turned on the multicurrency feature in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT). 

Refer to the following steps:

1. Go to the Company menu and then select Chart of Accounts. 
2. Look for the bank account to check the balance.

Refer to this article for more information about the account types on the chart of accounts in QBDT: Work with the chart of accounts in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you need to correct your bank balance, adding a journal entry will do the trick, Check this reference for more information on how to add, edit, or reverse a journal entry: Create a journal entry in QuickBooks Desktop for Windows or Mac.

Always feel free to leave your comments below if you have other questions about checking your bank balance in QBDT. I'm always here to help.

I am having the same issue with QuickBooks Online.  In the chart of accounts and registers, I'm showing a zero balance for our Euro account, however on the Balance Sheet and Trial Balance, I'm showing a balance of €41,000.  I've closed the bank account, made the QuickBooks account inactive, but it's still showing up on our Balance Sheet, which is not accurate.  I cannot present our financial statements to my boss like this.  Has anyone figured out how to fix this issue and get the balance to show zero on the Balance Sheet?

Thanks for joining this thread, @econnolly. 

Our main goal here is to zero out your balance sheet report. Your books will remain correct as a result.

Based on your scenario, the trial balance and balance sheet reports match, so there should be no issue. But since they don't check the record or amount in your register, there are some factors that we may look into.

I'd recommend checking with your accountant so they can confirm if you need to create a Journal Entry to zero out the balance on those reports. Visit this link if you don't have an accountant yet: QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor.

Feel free to browse these articles below on how to work with exchange rates, deposit funds with different currencies, and reconcile banks: 

• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online
• Multi-Currency FAQs in QuickBooks

I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. I'd happily work with you again to address other QuickBooks-related concerns. Just drop a comment beneath. 

I am the accountant.  I'm a CPA and this doesn't make any sense to me.  It seems to be a system error.  You can't have a balance in one account from one perspective, and a zero balance in the same account from another perspective.  Any journal entry I might post may zero out the account from the balance sheet/trial balance perspective, but the ledger will still show a balance.  

We are trying to close this account, but this is only possible if the balance is zero from the ledger perspective.  When I post a journal entry to zero out the account from the balance sheet/trial balance perspective as you suggested (thus creating a balance on the ledger), then make the account inactive, QuickBooks creates an entry to put the money back in the ledger so that the balance is zero from the ledger perspective and can then be closed.  It's a vicious circle.  

This is a systematic issue that needs a resolution.  Is there some process that needs to be run to close out gains from foreign currency exchanges that I'm not aware of?  I see complaints above dating back multiple years with no solution.  Please find a solution.  Telling us to seek out the advice of an accountant is a cop-out.  Most of us are accountants.  This is a systematic issue that QuickBooks should be able to solve.

Hi there, @econnolly.

Let me share additional information about closing out gains from foreign currency exchanges.

Mixing currencies in your journal entries may lead to incorrect open balances or incorrect exchange gains or losses. Since you have a discrepancy in your balances, I suggest following the steps on option 2 and option 3 in this article: Multi-Currency: Journal Entry Error Message. This will help close out gains from foreign currency exchanges.

Come back to this post and let me know how it goes, @econnolly. I'll be around to provide further assistance.

You may also want to learn more about using your own exchange rates in QuickBooks Online. You can check out this article for more details: Enter and use your own exchange rates.

Have a good one.

Have you been able to discern how to solve this issue?

Hello there, @Shamaz1ng. I'm here to share information about how you can fix the discrepancy balances.

If you use different currencies in your journal entry, you will encounter incorrect open balances or incorrect exchange gains or losses. to fix it, you can follow the options below to offset these balances.

Here's the first option you can follow:
 

1. From your initial journal entry, make a copy of the client or supplier, and then give it the second currency you want to use. For the duplicate, you'll need to use a slightly different Display name.
2. Void any open transactions for the original customer or seller that are in the first currency but ought to be in the second.
3. So that they are in the proper currency, recreate these transactions using the duplicate vendor or customer. For the exchange rate, amounts in domestic currency, and amounts in foreign currency, consult your printout of the deleted journal entry to replicate these transactions.
    

For the next option, you can follow the Option 3 steps in this article: Multi-Currency: Journal Entry Error Message. Also, in reference to the steps above you can refer to Option 2 in that article.

Additionally, you may check out this article for additional references: Mixing currencies in journal entries.

If you need further assistance, feel free to post a reply. Have a good one!

This does not relate to a customer or supplier. We had our companies (Europe and US) merged but they are separate entities and we needed to separate them and remove the Europe business from our US books, including the bank accounts associated. 

Because I removed this to match a US value - the Chart of accounts reflects $0 but the balance sheet reflects a negative number if I try to make this inactive.