Reconcile a bank account

The purpose of the bank reconciliation process is to allow all financial activity recorded into the Elevate system to be matched against the actual corresponding bank account to ensure that there are no differences in either transactions or values.

If the bank reconciliation highlights differences, these usually arise from one or more of the following errors:

• Entering a transaction which did not occur in reality, i.e. a duplicate
• Forgetting to enter a transaction which occurred in reality
• Entering a transaction with incorrect details, e.g. a wrong date or value
• Opening bank balances have not been defined properly

So that financial errors can be identified and resolved at the earliest possible opportunity, client bank accounts within Elevate should be reconciled regularly. We recommend that you reconcile your client bank accounts at least weekly, and ideally at the end of each day. 

STEP-BY-STEP

1. From the Accounting module, select the bank account which you wish to reconcile.
2. Choose Options > Reconcile.
   
   
3. The reconciliation screen will show the latest reconciled balance.
   
   
4. Choose the date up to which you wish to reconcile the bank account, and enter the balance from your statement on that date. 
   
   
5. Click Start Reconciliation. 
6. The transaction screen will highlight all unreconciled transactions, by default. It will also show the difference between your statement balance and those transactions within Elevate which have been marked as reconciled. Any non-zero difference will be highlighted in red, indicating a discrepancy in the transactions. The goal is to resolve the difference to zero, when it will turn green.
   
   
   
   
7. In order to search or browse for particular transactions, apply filters based on date range or reconciled status.
   
   
    
8. When a transaction within Elevate has been identified on the bank statement, tick the checkbox and the verified balance and difference will adjust accordingly.
   
   
   
   
9. Click any transaction to view full details, and delete if necessary.
   
10. When the reconciled transaction total matches the bank statement, the difference will be zero and will show green.
    
    

It is not possible to reconcile office or business bank accounts within Elevate, since not all activity relating to those accounts (e.g. wages, national insurance, pensions, utilities, office overheads) can be recorded in Elevate as it is client-accounting software. That is the responsibility of the main office accounting package, e.g Xero, Sage or QuickBooks. 

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