Total Mess

Hello, mrsstoll. 

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing issues with your transactions in QuickBooks Desktop. I know it can be frustrating when your transactions are not in order, and affecting your ability to reconcile your bank accounts. To help you resolve this issue, please provide me with some more details. For instance, what specifically is "messing up" your transactions? Are they not being recorded correctly, or are they not showing up at all?  

Furthermore, regarding the reconciliation process, have you noticed any discrepancies in the balances between your bank account and QuickBooks? Are you encountering error messages or codes when attempting to reconcile your bank account? The more information you can provide me with, the better I'll be able to assist you in resolving this issue. 

In the meantime, you can run a Reconciliation Discrepancy report or a Transaction Detail report to see if any transactions have been changed, deleted, or added. Also, I suggest reconciling your account each month separately, one statement at a time, starting with your oldest bank statement if you're reconciling multiple months. Then you can systematically check off matching transactions one by one by clicking their boxes and ensuring the difference shown is zero to complete the reconciliation.

For further assistance, I recommend reaching out to your Accountant/ProAdvisor. They can provide expert advice and help you navigate through the reconciliation process.

To know more about reconciliation in QuickBooks Desktop, check out these articles:

• Reconcile hub
• Fix Reconciliation Discrepancies 
• Fix beginning balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop

Additionally, I've included an article that will guide you in ensuring all your transactions are organized in the correct account to avoid issues: Understand Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks.
 

The Community team has your back if you have other queries related to QuickBooks. Please don't hesitate to visit us or leave a comment below so we can provide assistance and help you resolve your concerns. Stay safe, and have a good one!

Thanks for the help... to answer your questions, the person who worked here previously (and the people who owned the business) were not familiar with QuickBooks and were years behind in entering stuff, so things were entered in wrong. And to make matters worse, when they paid bills, the checks were recorded but there were no invoices attached to the payment.  Also, they have not had a bank reconciliation done since 2014. I am trying to correct years of mess starting with the stuff I entered upon starting this job in September of this year. Any ideas how I can get the accounts right without having to uninstall everything would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for getting back to us, @mrsstoll. Let me add several insights to help you in your reconciliation process.

Uninstalling your QuickBooks Desktop software doesn't help us correct the data. Keeping it installed would also prevent data loss.

First, you mentioned there were no invoices attached to the check payment transactions. To fix this, let me show you how to link a check payment to a bill.

1. Go to the Vendors center.
2. Select a vendor. 
3. Open a check payment transaction you want to link to a bill.
4. Under the Account dropdown, type and select Accounts Payable.
5. Right-click and select Pay bills.
6. Select Set credits.
7. Click Done.

You may then run an A/P Aging report to see the outstanding bill payments and verify if linking a check to a bill has been successful.

Next, in your reconciliation process, it's best to start with recent transactions if they've been entered before reconciling previous periods. Please ensure your bank statements are ready to determine the beginning balance amount. In this case, the beginning balance would be the last month's ending balance.

You might encounter minor differences in the beginning and ending balances during your bank reconciliation. In order to fix this, you can run a mini-reconciliation or create a journal, but it's best to refer to an accountant for detailed strategies and steps.

I'll leave these articles as guides in your bank reconciliation process and running your reports: 
 

• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Desktop
• Customize customer, job, and sales reports in QuickBooks Desktop

We'll always be here should you have further updates or questions on reconciling your bank transactions. Take care.