Reconciling Credit card with Credit Balance

Thanks for getting in touch with the Community, cjoy.
 

Before you begin reconciling, you'll want to review your opening balance. Initially, be sure to make a back up of the company file. If you're reconciling an account for the first time, be sure to review its opening balance.

Next, make sure you enter all transactions for your statement period you plan to reconcile. If there's transactions that haven't cleared the account and aren't on your statement yet, wait to enter them.
 

Once you've obtained a copy of your bank statement, you can start reconciling. If you're reconciling multiple months, you'll want to start with your oldest statement. Reconcile each month separately, one statement at a time.
 

Here's how:

1. In the top menu bar, go to Banking, then Reconcile.
2. In your Account field, choose which bank or credit card account you want to reconcile.
3. The Statement Date is automatically filled in. Usually, it's 30 or 31 days after your statement date of the previous reconciliation. Change it as needed to match your statement.
4. QuickBooks also automatically enters the Beginning Balance. It uses your ending balance from the last reconciliation to get this number.
5. Enter your Ending Balance based on the statement.
6. Enter your Service Charge and Interest Earned based on the statement. Don't enter charges you've already entered.
7. Review your fields. If the information is correct, select Continue or OK.

If your beginning balance doesn't match the statement, don't worry. You have a few tools that can help:

• In the event your numbers don't match, click Locate Discrepancies. This gives you reports you can use to find discrepancies and other reconciliation issues.
• If you still have problems, here's how to fix your opening balance and beginning balance.
• In the event you need to start over from scratch, you can select Undo Last Reconciliation.

Next, you'll need to compare your statement and QuickBooks.

Please feel welcome to send a reply if there's any additional questions. Have an awesome day!

Thank you for reaching out. I just need specific help on how to handle the credit balance on my credit card statement so I can reconcile properly.

Hey there again, @cjoy. 

Thanks for reaching back out to us with more information on what you're needing. 

If you're unable to correct the balance to reconcile correctly, I suggest working with your accountant on guidance for this problem. If you don't currently have one, check out this link to find one near you.

Feel free to come back and tell us how it went after speaking with your accountant. Have a wonderful Monday! 

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@cjoy wrote:

Thank you for reaching out. I just need specific help on how to handle the credit balance on my credit card statement so I can reconcile properly.

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If the credit card statement shows a negative balance, an over-payment, enter the negative balance as you start the reconcile process. Then when you mark off all the transactions that cleared, the totals will match as usual.

It should look like this as you start to reconcile the credit card:

@Candice C  RE: If you're unable to correct the balance to reconcile correctly, I suggest working with your accountant on guidance for this problem.

Why punt on this? Reconciling a credit card is the same if you have a running balance, pay it off each month, or have overpaid the previous balance. Makes no difference.

Hello,

I had this same scenerio.  Just put the amount as -26.53 (or what ever your amount is) use the - sign and it will reconcile.  Had to do this a couple of times and it worked out to zero balance.

Debra

When I enter a negative number in the "Ending Balance" field to represent the credit, QB removes the negative and makes the ending balance a positive number. How do you get it to hold a negative number so that you can reconcile correctly? 

Let's get this sorted out and display the transactions on the Reconcile page, joyrideraz.

We'll need to enter the negative balance as you start the reconcile process. Let me show you how:

1. Select Reconcile in the Banking section.
2. Click the Account drop-down menu, and then select the credit card account under Credit Cards.
3. The Statement Date is automatically filled in. Usually, it's 30 or 31 days after the statement date of the previous reconciliation. Change it as needed to match your bank statement.
4. QuickBooks also automatically enters the Beginning Balance.
5. In the Ending Balance field, enter the negative amount. 
6. If your bank statement shows a service charge or interest that you didn't enter into QuickBooks, don't worry. Enter the amounts in the Service Charge and Interest Earned section. Don't enter charges you've already entered in QuickBooks.
7. Review the fields and select Continue to start reconciling.

If the same thing happens, there may be a damaged data on the company file preventing the negative value to appear. You can follow the steps in this article to troubleshoot the issue: Resolve data damage with your QuickBooks Desktop company file.

In case you encounter some issues upon reconciling. This great resource will surely help you with fixing it. For the details, please check out this article: How to fix reconciliation issues in QBDT?. To learn more about reconciliation, you can check out these articles:

• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Desktop
• Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks

I'd be happy to hear any updates after performing the steps as I want to ensure this is resolved for you. Also if you have questions about running reports, please add a reply below. I'd be happy to assist you further.

@joyrideraz  RE: When I enter a negative number in the "Ending Balance" field to represent the credit, QB removes the negative and makes the ending balance a positive number. 

That sounds like a bug to me. The ending balance for both a bank account and a credit card account can of course be negative and so QuickBooks has always accepted a negative number.

What version of QuickBooks are you using?

@RCVRE: We'll need to enter the negative sign found on your keyboard (-) right after the amount.

What? If I enter an amount in a QuickBooks field, including the ending balance field, and then enter a "-", the QuickBooks calculator comes up. Always has. For decades.

Why would you tell someone to put the negative symbol after the amount in any case? Apart from not working in QuickBooks, it's not normal.

Hi @BigRedConsulting. Thank you for the note. 

My colleague actually means to put a negative sign on the amount. Rest assured, we're going to modify the response to avoid confusion. 

Meanwhile, I'll be adding this great Community resource in case you've got other QuickBooks concerns such as setting up payments, managing your income and expenses, running reports, etc. Please refer to this article for more details: Community help articles.

Let us know if you have other questions or concerns with QuickBooks. We are here 24/7 to back you up. Keep safe!

@Rubielyn_J  RE: My colleague actually means to put a negative sign on the amount.

That doesn't make any sense either.

RE: Rest assured, we're going to modify the response to avoid confusion. 

I wasn't worried. I don't really care.

The issue at hand is that QuickBooks doesn't accept a negative number for this customer. The customer's question is, why is that happening?

Thanks for clarifying, BigRedConsulting.

I'll make sure that you'll be able to reconcile your accounts, joyrideraz. 

QuickBooks Desktop normally accepts negative balances for credit cards and bank accounts. To isolate the issue, you'll want to make sure that you're using the latest release of your QBDT product. This way, you always get our security patches and bug fixes. Here's how to do it:

1. Go to the Help menu.
2. Choose Update QuickBooks Desktop.
3. Head to the Update Now tab, then click Get Updates to start the download.
4. Restart QuickBooks once the download finishes, 
5. When prompted, accept the option to install the new release.

However, if you're still unable to enter a negative number, I'd recommend running the Verify and Rebuild tools. This will scan your company file for potential data integrity issue and fixes them right away. 

I've also attached an article that will help you resolve common reconciliation errors and mistakes' in QuickBooks Desktop: Fix issues when you're reconciling.

Drop me a comment below if you need more help in reconciling your other accounts. Have a good one.

Hi there,

I need help with this same issue but I am using Quick books Online and not Quick books Desktop.

I have a credit on my credit card statement. How do I go about reconciling my account.

Thank you

Thanks for joining this thread, ChristineYA. I appreciate your detailed information.

I tested this myself in our QuickBooks Online test drive account and was able to enter a negative number for an account's Ending balance.

Here's an image showing my experience:

After entering the negative amount, I was able to continue reconciling.

Since your books aren't accepting a negative amount when entering ending balances for account reconciliations, I'd recommend checking your browser. It's possible this could have something to do with temporary internet files. Browsing applications store these types of records, but sometimes they can cause issues with certain webpages. You can open a private window and check to see if QuickBooks will accept the negative ending balance.

Here's how to access incognito mode in some of the most commonly used web browsers:

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + N
• Mozilla Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + P
• Microsoft Edge: Ctrl + Shift + P
• Safari: Command + Option + P

If you're able to see your on-screen steps while browsing privately, it's safe to say this problem's being caused by the browser. It can be fixed by clearing cached data and Intuit-specific cookies.

In the event it continues occurring while you're browsing in incognito mode, you'll initially want to try switching to another browsing application.

Here's a list of supported browsers:

• Google Chrome - version 78 or newer
• Mozilla Firefox - version 76 or newer
• Microsoft Edge - version 75 or newer
• Safari - version 12 or newer
• Opera - version 68 or newer
• Samsung - version 10 or newer

You can also check a browser's compatibility with QuickBooks by utilizing our browser health checkup tool. QuickBooks supports the current and two previous versions of browsers. If you find that you're using an unsupported version, make sure to update it to its latest release. Steps for doing so can be found on the particular company's website.

In the event you've found no problems that could be causing this with your browser, I'd recommend using a different device and/or internet connection. If it continues happening on other devices and/or internet connections, you'll want to get in touch with our Customer Care team. They'll be able to pull up the account in a secure environment, conduct further research, and create an investigation ticket if necessary.

They can be reached while you're signed in.

Here's how:

1. Use the Help (?) icon.
   
2. Click Contact Us.
   
3. Enter a description of your situation in the What can we help you with? field, then hit Let's talk.
   
4. Select Start messaging or Get a call.
   

Be sure to review their support hours so you'll know when agents are available.

I've also included a couple detailed resources about system requirements for QuickBooks and reconciling accounts which may come in handy moving forward:

• System requirements
• Reconcile an account

If there's any additional questions, I'm just a post away. Have a lovely day!