Matching transactions, entering interest, and reconciling the account

There are three steps involved in reconciling Carol's check account with the bank's statement. First is to select the matching items. Second, enter any bank charges or interest. Third, reconcile the bank account. It is worth noting that this reconciliation process is the same for other accounts, such as Visa, Diner's Club and AmEx accounts. To do this, we need to start at the Banking command center and click on to Reconcile Accounts. In the top left-hand corner, ensure that your NAB check account is selected.

The bank statement date is the date that we're reconciling to, which is the 31st of January 2015. We're receiving this message because we are recording at a much earlier date than January 2015. Let's just click OK for today. The closing statement balance is the amount that is at the bottom of their paper statement, $13,556.75. We press Tab. The calculated statement balance is our opening balance, and the out of balance is the amount that we need to find, or match, and reduce this down to zero in order to reconcile the accounts.

Using the paper copy of your statement, we're going to place a tick beside each of the items on the computer screen as well on your paper copy. Let's start by looking for bank fees. We have bank fees of $15. Now, you can place a tick in the left hand column, to mark that item of bank fees. The second entry is the monthly merchant fees. You can also click into the memo area to mark that particular item. Don't forget to place a tick onto your paper copy that you have marked those items. Let's now look for a deposit on the 2nd of January for $100, and another deposit for $20 on the 2nd of January.

Mark both those items. Then we're looking for check number 147589 for $125. And check number 147590 for $175. Marking those off as you go. Then look for a deposit for $124.50, that was for our cash sales. And we also need to look for a debit. A withdrawal for check number 147595 for $320, check number 147598, that's going to be for $220, check 147599 for $98.

Marking those off as we go, and 147596 for $150 as well as check number 147600 for $110. Now we need to look for a deposit of $1,500 and also $1,450. Mark those off. Check number 147591 for $300 and here are lots of deposits. We're looking for $1,470, $550, $250, and then $495.

Looking for 995. We also need to scroll down for 250. We've just missed that 995, so let's just mark it. We've just missed that entry for $250, so let's just mark that item off on our computer screen. Our out of balance is $35.25. We can easily locate that that's our last entry of interest. So, this is the second step of our process for reconciling. We can use our Bank Entry button, down towards the bottom left hand corner, and we can add some interest of $35.25.

If we press Tab, it's going to have an ID of IE. The date is the 31st of January. The income account that this needs to be allocated to, is not on our screen. It should be for 7000, and it's not there. So let's just click Cancel to close out of that list, but staying within the screen. Use our mouse to click onto Lists on the menu bar, come down to Accounts, across to Income, and now click the New button.

We're going to type 7000 and tab down to type the name, Interest. On the Details tab, we're going to select the text code free, in this particular instance, and click OK. We now have a new account 47000 Interest in our accounts list. Let's Close, and now we can go back to the Income account, and locate. If you can't see it, just click onto the Refresh button, and scroll down to 4000. Might have just needed refreshing, that's all.

There we go. Here's our interest account. In the memo, just type in Interest. We do need to make sure that we've got free for our text code. There's no text, so now we can click Record. This entry will be automatically marked off, so our out of balance is now zero. The third and final step of the reconciliation is to reconcile. We have a button down at the bottom of the screen. We can click on to Reconcile, and we have an option to print a report. This will come out at your printer. Today, I'd like you to click onto Reconcile, just to complete the third step.

If we had any transactions that were left over or not presented, they would appear in this window for our next reconciliation. Let's Cancel and return to the command center.