How to Reconcile Bank Accounts

Argenta has bank reconciliation built in, so your records can be checked against what the bank actually reported. You need Finance Manager or Master Admin.

Opening the Reconcile Screen

1. Go to General Financials > Chart of Accounts
2. Click the Account Register icon on the bank account you want to reconcile
3. Click Reconcile Account at the top of the register

Two Tabs, When a Bank Is Connected

If the account is linked to a real bank through the Bank Feed, the screen splits into two tabs, each showing a count of what is waiting behind it:

• Match Your Bank lists the transactions your bank reported, so you tick each one off against the entry in your books that it is. Ticking records the tie and writes nothing into your ledger.
• Balance And Finish is the reconciliation itself.

The screen opens on Match Your Bank whenever the account has a live bank connection, whether or not the bank has sent anything through yet. An account with no linked bank never sees the tabs and goes straight to the reconciliation.

Doing the Reconciliation

1. Check Enter Your Bank Balance. When the account has a linked bank, Argenta has already filled in your bank's figure brought forward with anything posted since, and says how old the bank's own reading is. Otherwise type the balance from your statement.
2. Statement Period is optional. Set a start and end date and click APPLY to work one statement at a time, or leave it blank to see everything unreconciled.
3. Tick each transaction that has cleared your bank.
4. Click Mark as Cleared.

Five figures at the top track where you are: Beginning Balance (where the period starts, from your last closed reconciliation), Balance (shown as Full Account Balance while a statement period is applied), Unreconciled, Difference and Discrepancy. Discrepancy reads BALANCED! once the unreconciled transactions fully explain the gap between your books and your bank.

Closing It Out

When the Discrepancy reads BALANCED!, click Close Out This Time Period, beside Mark as Cleared: at the far right of the tab row when the account has a bank linked, or just above the transactions when it does not.

• It refuses to close a reconciliation that does not balance and tells you the amount it is out by. A closed reconciliation is what the Bank Reconciliation report shows an auditor, and it cannot be edited afterwards.
• Dates are not required to close. Closing with no statement period means the reconciliation covers everything up to the day you closed it, and it is recorded in those words.

Past Reconciliations

Every closed reconciliation is listed under Past Reconciliations further down the page, with the statement period, statement balance, cleared total, difference and who finished it. Open one to see it again, read-only, with a Print button.

Best Practices

• Reconcile each account monthly, when the statement arrives
• Enter bank fees and interest in Argenta before you start, so they can be ticked off with everything else
• Investigate a discrepancy as soon as you see one rather than closing around it
• Keep the closed reconciliation as your audit trail, since it cannot be changed after the fact