Please explain how sub accounts work

Hey there, @StephanieCrocker1.

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to the QuickBooks Community. I hope you're having a great day so far. 

When connecting a subaccount, it's important to note how the bank sends the downloaded transactions. If the transactions download to one account, connect only the parent account. If the transactions download to the individual accounts, connect the subaccounts and not the parent account.

The same opening balance transaction may download to all subaccounts when initially connecting your account. You'll need to delete all but one of these balances when you reconcile.

Some banks may show the overall bank balance at each subaccount level. This is because the bank provides us with a static balance of the entire account, not the balance of each subaccount.

Please keep in mind, that when it’s time to reconcile, you only need to reconcile the parent account because all transactions in the subaccounts roll up into it.

I hope this information helps break down the process of a subaccount a bit better. Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns. Have a good one! 

Thanks for your response. I guess I'm not sure exactly how this works. Here's what I'm seeing:

BANK SIDE, the bank folds all transactions into ONE list. So basically one running balance I get ONE statement and on that statement I get ONE ending balance. The statement does break out each of the two card transactions into sections, but gives no totals. This makes me think I would reconcile JUST the parent account. 

IE

- card 1

transaction 1 $5. 00

transaction 2 $45.00

- card 2

transaction 1 $27.50

etc.

QUICKBOOKS SIDE, I click on EACH of the two accounts to see what transactions are. To me, this may be why the quickbooks balances are so high...because those transactions have technically never been reconciled. I was told to reconcile the parent account, which I've succesfully done but there are still balances in the sub accounts. 

And so...how do I fix this apparent error and what is the exact workflow moving forward? Thanks!

Managing Credit Card (CC) subaccounts in QuickBooks Online (QBO) can get tricky, Stephanie. It indeed sounds perplexing that although the reconciliation appears correct, the bank feed from Chase Bank seems to be not working as expected especially with the high balances in QBO compared to the bank balance despite no unreconciled items or unusual opening balances. I want to provide further information to help ensure your reconciliations and QBO balances are accurate.

First, you're correct, reconciling just the parent account is the way to go as shown in your client's CC statement displaying only one ending balance. To elaborate, the parent account shows the consolidated balance of all its subaccounts. Therefore, when you reconcile the parent account, you're effectively reconciling the entire account structure because the parent account's ending balance includes all the transactions from its subaccounts.

Next, let me explain the amounts shown in the QuickBooks Balance column of your screenshot to help you identify any potential errors. The positive amount represents all the charges made by the card user, while the negative amount reflects all the payments made. Here are the details based on your screenshot:

• Chase Card Subaccount #1: $50,815.72 worth of charges posted to this sub-account in QuickBooks. 
• Chase Card Subaccount #2: -$50,046.62 worth of payment transactions.
• Chase Card parent account: Since the amounts of the CC subaccounts roll up to the main account, we get a difference of $769.10 worth of pending charges.

In your screenshot, there are $769.10 in charges that do not match the -$769.10 in payment transactions in your Bank Balance column which is the real-time data from your bank. I recommend verifying the actual ending balance and transactions in the credit card statement to spot any potential errors where the transactions are posted. To help you in this task, click on View Register for each of the subaccounts to verify if there are any transactions that might be posted in error: 

Additionally, consider pulling up reports like Balance Sheet Detail or Reconciliation Report which can help you get insight about the detail of the cleared items during the reconciliation process. 

Should there be any need to fix reconciled items, I'm adding this article as a reference: Fix issues for accounts you've reconciled in the past in QuickBooks Online.

I hope the insights I've provided will help you on your way resolve any discrepancies and maintain accurate financial records for your client. If you have any further questions or need additional help, please don't hesitate to click on the Reply button. Take care!

so close. I get what you're saying.

At the time of the screenshot, the difference between the two subaccounts matched the bank balance on Chase online.

Fast forward to today and I have confirmed that that difference between the two sub accounts, now $50,815.72 and -$50,815.72 matches the bank balance on Chase online.

The transactions DO seem to be coming in in each of the corresponding sub accounts in the bank feed.

So, back to the question of what to do?

- if I go into the registers of those individual sub accounts, I'm again confirming that there are no unreconciled transactions except those since my last reconciliation. (to confirm these in no way equal the $50k in question)

- could I merge these? I'm thinking not?

- Journal Entry to transfer balances from one account to the other? (I guess I could try this and delete it if it doesn't work?)