Just wondering if you have any plans to improve on the ‘reconciliation’ tool at any point? At the moment, unless bank transactions are posted on exactly the same date as they appear on the statement the tool is not hugely helpful. A second main problem is that the transactions are not flagged as reconciled after the process and just come up again the next time a reconciliation is done so you can’t create a marker to progress from next time. The problem is compounded by only having a balance on the current account view at the end of each day rather than after each transaction. This obliges the user to redate transactions to get the screen and statement figures to match. With a balance for every transaction at least a small amount of redating could allow for a note to be made sayign that the amounts balanced - is there a setting for the balance display (after every transaction) please.
The normal reconciliation process of putting a start and finish balances and then choosing from a list of inflows and outflows, with transactions being flagged once used (and not offered the next time) is pretty simple and incredible useful.
There are times when the ‘loose’ link between actual bank statement and the bank account list are a lifesaver but in general it would be good to be able to lock the statement at a given balance (separately from the system lock date), and for the reconcile function to start from the most recent reconciled bank entry so we just enter the closing statement date and balance and if it’s correct, it’s locked.
But regarding the dates, it can be a pain when making a transfer between different banks which shows as different dates. Could the ‘transfer between accounts’ offer an option to allow n days leeway?
Definitely agree, being able to flag transactions as reconciled would be an easy way to check if a transaction has been posted in the wrong month, ie; a previously reconciled month.
I find it infuriating that not only do I have to check the month’s start and finish balances, that I also have to check from the 1st day of the financial year too, to make sure nothing has been posted incorrectly.
Hi, Thanks for the support on this. I think the balance of opinion is that a reconciliation process, to be effective, should categorise/flag transactions in such a way that they do not appear on future reconciliations - the process is incremental. The purpose, after all, is to confirm that the QuickFile balance jives with the bank version and allows for a line to be drawn under those transactions that lead to this balanced position.
I am far from an expert on accounting software but I can remember the early Quickbooks reconciliation method (I have not used it for 10 years +), which seemed effective and painless. At a reconciliation point (frequency at user discretion), the opening balance was offered - presumably, the sum of all the previously reconciled transactions [if this was not what was printed on the statement this indicates that a previously reconciled transaction must have been changed - which is up to the user to sort out] - and the final balance from the statement was entered. During the reconciliation, the user would tick inflows (in one column on the left) and outflows (in the right column) from all the unreconciled transaction on the account (irrespective of date) until the balance was reached. Reconciliation was confirmed and the transactions leading to the new position were flagged accordingly.
I can’t remember what happened if there were missing transactions or incorrect figures during the reconciliation process but i think you could sort out these problems on-the-fly without cancelling the whole process and resorting to pen and paper to note which transaction required attention. With QuickFile it may be easier to make adjustments during the reconciliation process as you can open more than one browser tab and add/correct transactions as required and then refresh the reconciliation view in the original tab in order to continue. Once complete, reconciled transactions could be shown on the bank view through a colour change or an icon, or something of that kind.
It seems that the majority of the code to do all this is already in place with the current reconciliation facility - just the flagging required really.
Flexibility to switch reconciliation status on/off manually is preferable to a rigid system of locking transactions according to date or disallowing edits for reconciled transactions as these are programatically much more challenging and burdensome for users. A warning window for changing/unmarking/deleting reconciled transactions would probably suffice.
I think that the suggestion of the number of days of leeway might be over complicating things to be honest. The book-keeper should have the flexibility to post transactions for any dates they want and can simply be offered all unreconciled transactions, irrespective of date, during a reconciliation session. Transactions remain visible until they are reconciled or deleted as erroneous/duplicate.
I would really like this as well as I am finding that I am having to work out what has already been reconcilled and what hasn’t as some transactions on one date are showing on one month’s statement and some on the next month. I would find this really useful to be able to say have reconcilled and all is OK and then the next month do it again. Reconciliation is taking far too long to sort out when really I can marry up all my transactions on my statement perfectly.
I am testing the software with small community accounts and fined the reconciliation really awkward for same reasons other people say. I was hoping to move my business accounts here but with the numbers of transactions I have I think that would be impossible so for the moment this would be a deal breaker. Do you have any news on development of this?
There are no changes planned here unfortunately. You’re welcome to start a new #support post however, and we can work with you to help iron out any specific issues you’re facing.
I have got used to this and don’t find it a problem, there’s no real need to flag what’s been reconciled if you do month end reconciliations. I can see it might be more difficult if you like to do it between month ends or on irregular dates.
The problem arises if you have either a bank who will date entries earlier than the closing date of the previous statement (I don’t think Barclaycard actually do that but they sure play fast and loose with dates in the on-screen statements) or if you’ve set the lock-date back and forget to bring it forward and then (particularly easy at this time of year) enter a wrong month or year on a transaction, like entering a purchase and marking it paid. Locating the source of that if the mismatch is only discovered later is frustrating and time consuming and simply doesn’t happen with systems that do a conventional reconciliation and lock.
What would be useful would be a separate lock date per bank account, so reconciliation of an account would set it to the closing date. Then when you set the main lock date back in order to work with depreciation journals or whatever, there’s no risk of trashing a bank rec.
we will then be able to review next time we do an update.