Forced reconciliation and now beginning balance is off

Hello there, @MeganDKS2022. 

We can find the transactions that cause your beginning balance to get off by running Reconcile Discrepancy report. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Reports menu, then select Banking. 
2. Select Reconciliation Discrepancy.
3. Click the Account, and then click OK. 

Form there, you'll see a list of transactions that changed since your last reconciliation. Once you find a discrepancy, note the transaction date and the Entered/Last Modified, which will tell you when the change happened. 

Then, correct the discrepancy. You may need to edit or enter the transactions again. You can try one of the following options:

• Undo a previous reconciliation and redo it
• Ignore the discrepancy and let QuickBooks enter an offsetting adjustment

To make sure your books are correct, I'd recommend consulting your accountant. 

Feel free to message again if you have additional questions about fixing your beginning balance. I'm always around to guide you more with your reconciliation. 

Hi - thanks.

Yeah, I know how to run a discrepancy report but I had to force reconcile all of 2020 to start 2021 clean per my accountant. Nothing had been modified since but the figure in the beginning balance was not the ending balance of the forced rec, it was the amount of the "cleared balance."

Hello there, @MeganDKS2022.

I'd like to share a solution that can help in this situation.

When the Beginning Balance is incorrect, this might be due to one of the following reasons:

• No balance or an incorrect balance was entered when the account was set up.
• Previously cleared and reconciled transactions were voided, deleted, or modified.
• The file was converted from a different version of QuickBooks.
• Possible data damage.

We can create a journal entry to correct your opening balance. I'd also recommend reaching out to an accounting expert or to your accountant to guide you with it.

You can follow these steps on how to create a journal entry:

1. Go to Company, and then select Make General Journal Entries.
2. Change the date to the correct statement date of your beginning balance.
3. Select the account you want from the Account drop down.
4. Enter the correct opening balance in the Debit column.
5. Select Opening Balance Equity and then select Save.

To provide you other troubleshooting solutions, you can check out this article: Fix beginning balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop. 

Feel free to browse this link here if you need help with other tasks with bank feeds and reconciling accounts. It'll route you to our general payroll topics with articles.